Scanning of Historical Clothes Using 3D Scanners: Comparison of Goals, Tools, and Methods

Abstract

Due to the UN and EU’s strong interest in digitizing cultural heritage, the application of 3D scanning technology is gaining importance, even in the case of under-explored areas, such as the 3D scanning of historical clothes. This article discovers and compares methodologies of 3D scanning of historical clothes presented in the literature in order to determine if a new methodology is needed. PRISMA protocol was used to browse scientific sources in an organized way. We posed the following research question: How have 3D scanners been used to digitize historical clothes? The very limited number of works identified, despite our thorough search, allows us to conclude that this topic is very new, and a lot of research can be conducted in the future. We analyzed the methodologies proposed by other authors, taking into account factors such as what was scanned, what was the purpose of scanning, what hardware and software was used, how detailed the description was, etc. It was revealed that other authors explored the topic insufficiently and no complex and coherent methodology of 3D digitization of historical clothes is present. Generally, the field of 3D scanning of historical clothing remains, at this point, very small and fragmented. This work is one of steps to change it.

Keywords

• 3D scanning
• historical clothes
• heritage digitization
• methodology evaluation
• systematic literature review