2020 UMDCC+ MDL Annual Meeting

3D digitization involves the creation of digital surrogates of museum objects. The use of 3D modeling technology in cultural heritage institutions has rapidly increased over the past twenty years. While light-dependent imaging techniques, including photogrammetry, laser triangulation, LiDAR, and range scanning, have proliferated in the museum, more questions remain about a long-term model, metadata, and overall file standards. The files produced from these methods, often OBJ, PLY, and STL files, given their long-lasting usage, offer a comparative focus for analyzing the expertise and expense needed to create and share these files, which may put the technology out of reach of small to middle-size cultural heritage institutions and may prohibit non-research parties from accessing these file types. In order to combat these issues, until these 3D file types become more accessible and standardized along with their methods, the author recommends the creation of 360 degree GIF files as an inexpensive, accessible, and effective alternative for cultural heritage digitization.