A team of Australian scientists are using a world-first approach combining three-dimensional (3D) printing and virtual reality (VR) to bring a dinosaur \u201cback to life\u201d.<\/p>\n
Palaeontologists at a site in New South Wales state near the Great Ocean Road have uncovered more than 200 bits of bones of the wallaby-like leaellynasaura, an ornithopod native to Australia, in just 12 days, Xinhua news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, mechatronics students from Deakin University are using the bones uncovered to create a 3D model of the dinosaur on a computer which will eventually be printed.<\/p>\n
When completed, the project will be displayed at Geelong\u2019s National Wool Museum.<\/p>\n
Experts from Deakin\u2019s Virtual Reality Lab will then create a VR experience to make the tactile 3D-printed model of the dinosaur appear real.<\/p>\n
Ben Hornan, a co-founder of the project, said he hoped the experience would further the general population\u2019s knowledge of dinosaurs that once roamed Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking at how we can use virtual reality and 3D printing to help with providing educational experiences in a museum context,\u201d Horan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are doing experiments on how we can best print dinosaur-like skin so people will not just feel the geometry, the size and the scale but also the contour of the skin as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Researchers believe they will be able to replicate the skin of a leaellynasaura by scanning a blue tongue lizard, which has scaly skin similar to that of the dinosaur, and 3D-printing its scales.<\/p>\n
The leaellynasaura was a small herbivore and was thus understood to be a shy dinosaur, so participants who put the VR glasses on will be warned to approach it with care.<\/p>\n
Patricia Vickers-Rich, the scientists who discovered the leaellynasaura in the 1980s, said the project was an exciting new way to communicate her work.<\/p>\n
IANS<\/p>\n
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