From 1501 to 2001:
The Digital Michelangelo Project
By Jeremy Ginsberg
and Laura Jungman
Visitors of the Galleria dell'Accademia in
Florence frequently depart with postcards
or small plastic replicas of its crown jewel—
Michelangelo’s David. But in 1999, some
American students departed the museum
each morning with a much different souvenir:
a cluster of hard disks containing precise 3D
scans of the sculpture. A month later, the stu
dents of Stanford University’s Digital
Michelangelo Project had collected enough
scans to produce a high-resolution model of
Michelangelo’s legendary sculpture.
Professor Marc Levoy conceived the
Digital Michelangelo Project
(graphics.stanford.edu/projects/mich) in
1997 as an application of Stanford’s recent
ly developed 3D scanning technology. By
creating models of Michelangelo’s sculp
tures, he hoped to push the limits of tech
nology while building the world’s first digi
tal archive of sculptures. The Digital
Michelangelo team spent two years devel
oping the machines and software needed
for the task, including a 24-foot tall scan
ner that weighs over 1,800 pounds. Using
a stripe of laser light, the scanner can see
almost every detail on the sculptures.
In January 1999, a team of 30 students
and faculty worked nights scanning in the
museum for weeks, avoiding the throngs of
tourists who descend on Florence to view
the David.
The Digital Michelangelo Project, Stanford University
art world’s understanding of the sculpture on
its head.
The Digital Michelangelo Project made
some new discoveries about the David such
as the fact that historians had incorrectly
measured the statue’s height. It’s actually 17
feet tall, a significant difference from the 14
feet that art historians have been quoting
for centuries.
It was also revealed that David's eyes
don’t look in the same direction. Levoy
believes that Michelangelo did this inten
tionally to maximize the effect of the pro
files. The right side of David’s face looks tri
umphantly at Goliath, while the left side of
his face is a traditional Roman profile.
On the left is a photograph of Michelangelo's
David. On the right is a computer rendering made
from a geometric model.
Dana Katter, who volunteered for the
midnight scanning shift, describes scanning
as “the chance of a lifetime.” With
researcher Unnur Gretarsdottir, she used a
The Prelect tfiscsvered that the Kami statue Is aetaalh
17 loot tad, a significant difference fram the 14 feet that
art Mstarians haw been nutting fat centuries.
smaller, more flexible
scanner to access parts
of the sculptures that
the larger scanner could
not reach. Gretarsdottir
It took Michelangelo Buonarroti three
years to complete the David, and he started
in 1501 (michelangelo.com). It took Levoy
about the same amount of time to turn the
admits that “scanning was incredibly tedious
and time-consuming, but it was a wonderful
experience.”
Scanning the sculptures was just the
beginning of this ambitious project—the next
wmm .
To facilitate scanning horizontal crevices like David's lips, the
scanner head can also be rolled 90 degrees, changing the laser
line from horizontal (shown here) to vertical.
step is putting the digital images
together. Assembling the hundreds of
scans is like “trying to solve a jigsaw
puzzle in 3D, where none of the
pieces fit perfectly” said graphics stu
dent Matt Ginzton. He dedicated
much of his time on the project to
creating software that helps assemble
the pieces. The software was designed
to piece the scans together using
clues such as the chisel marks which
remain on the sculptures.
The team
scanned ten
different
sculptures
and collect
ed 250 giga
bytes worth
of data.
| The Digital Michelangelo Project, Stanford University
Using these
models, art historians can experience
Michelangelo's masterpieces anywhere in
the world.
The Galleria dell'Accademia plans to
install a multimedia viewing center so that
tourists can have access to the virtual sculp
tures. By enhancing the real museum with a
“virtual museum”, tourists will be able to
view the David from angles that would oth
erwise be impossible in reality.
Now that they’re back from Italy, Levoy
and the team will take the raw data—some 2
billion polygons and 7,000 color images for
the David alone—and build 3D models of
the sculptures. •
All photos reprinted courtesy of The Digital
Michelangelo Project, Stanford University.
Piecing together the past
As a side project, Levoy and his
team spent 24 hours a day for 3 weeks
imaging the Forma Urbis Romae, a mar
ble map of ancient Rome that dates
back to approximately 200 AD. The
huge map (45 x 60 feet) used to hang
on the back wall of the Roman census
bureau and showed the infrastructure of
ancient Rome in excruciating detail until
it fell and was destroyed.
Approximately 15 percent, or 1,163
slabs, of the map has been recovered,
and it is in 1,163 pieces. A puzzle since
it’s discovery in the Renaissance, some
fragments are several feet long and
weigh up to 150 pounds, not an easy
feat to piece it back together.
Levoy hopes that by scanning the
fragments, and then subsequently writ
ing the required algorithms, they will
be able to use technology to piece it
back together.