Hammerstone from Kenya, Handaxe from India

March 15, 2010 10:55 AM

View, rotate, and interact with fascinating 3D scans of some of humanity's oldest artifacts.

The rest of the Smithsonian Human Origins Program's website is pretty fantastic, too. (Previously.)

posted by SpringAquifer (8 comments total)

Ha ha ha, I'm looking at your butt, Ivory Lion Man!

Thank you; this is very educational.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:34 AM on March 15, 2010

Get to know the Willendorf Venus without a dinner and movie first...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 11:43 AM on March 15, 2010

My goal is to someday do this with exclusively North American artifacts and do it with something like 3DNP.

The native spirits would be pleased with my clever avoidance of plugins.
posted by circular at 11:43 AM on March 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Alas, they're using the 3DCT plugin, which is Windows-only. *Sigh*
posted by blacksmithtb at 11:54 AM on March 15, 2010

Cool.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 11:54 AM on March 15, 2010

Alas, they're using the 3DCT plugin, which is Windows-only.

Eh? I was able to rotate thingies using Safari on a Mac.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:56 AM on March 15, 2010

Eh? I was able to rotate thingies using Safari on a Mac.
Safari would be using the default Flash version. If you look, they use Flash, 3DCT and (good lord) PowerPoint. Flash is default, I believe.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:07 PM on March 15, 2010

circular: It seems 3dnp is nothing but a slideshow-viewer - just rotating between loaded images - this only enables 3d in one axis.
The flash-viewer on the smithsonian allows for free rotation along multiple axis.

Why anyone would use anything else than flash for this kind of 3d-illustration is beyond me. Maybe 3dct works on the iphone though...
posted by FidelDonson at 2:13 AM on March 16, 2010