Engineering Memory of the Month

Digital Michelangelo

Computer science and electrical engineering Professor Marc Levoy and his research group had a lot to be thankful for a decade ago; they had seized the chance to make history by preserving it digitally.
 
The group had gone to Italy for the 1998-1999 academic year to launch the Digital Michelangelo project, in which they would electronically archive the renaissance sculptor’s great works, including The David, by scanning them with an incredibly precise laser system.
 
The picture shows the laser scanner system, which was delivered to Levoy’s lab in Italy on Thanksgiving Day, 1998.
 
The Stanford News Service wrote, “The technology will make it possible to view a sculpture from different angles, zoom in on details as small as chisel marks, and change lighting conditions to see how they affect a statue’s appearance.”
 
A treasure trove of information and photos from the no-longer-active project are still online at graphics.stanford.edu/projects/mich/.
 
We are interested in your nostalgic photos and stories they tell. If you’d like to share them with the Stanford Engineering community, e-mail them to David Orenstein, Manager, Communications and P.R.