• The Central government plans to complete 3D digitisation of all museums under its administrative control by the year-end for better conservation of artefacts.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• Museums include Salar Jung museum, Hyderabad, the Allahabad Museum in Prayagraj, the Indian Museum, Kolkata, the Victoria Memorial Hall, the National Museum and the National Gallery of Modern Art.
• Besides aiding conservation, 3D digitisation in the museum space can offer visitors new ways to access and explore the collection.
• 3D models can be used in augmented reality and virtual reality learning experiences, and facilitate 3D printing.

3D SCANNING

• It will mean analysing a real-world object or environment to collect three-dimensional data of its shape and possibly its appearance. The collected data is then used to construct digital 3D models.
• The entire process was being carried out by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the MeitY and Union Culture Ministry for this.

JATAN VIRTUAL MUSEUM BUILDER SOFTWARE

• The 3D digitisation would be done using the JATAN virtual museum builder software which has been designed and developed by Human Centres Design and Computing Group, Centre for Development of Smart Computing, Pune.
• JATAN is a digital collection management system for Indian museums.
• It is a client server application with features such as image cropping, watermarking, unique numbering, and management of digital objects with multimedia representations.
• It can create 3D virtual galleries and provide public access through web, mobile or touch screen kiosks.

ABOUT C-DAC

• It is the apex research and development wing of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
• It was established in the year
• Its main purpose was to carry out research and development in Electronics, IT and other associated areas.
• It was setup to build Supercomputers in the context of the denial of the import of Supercomputers by the USA.
• C-DAC build India’s first indigenously built supercomputer Param 8000 in 1991.
• Applications of Param 8000: long-range weather forecasting, remote sensing, drug design and molecular modelling.