ABSTRACT
In 2019, a team from the Idaho Virtualization Lab (IVL), based at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, traveled to Fort Bragg, CA, to digitize the skeletal remains of a recovered blue whale and the skull of the largest mounted orca specimen currently known to exist, at the NOYO Center for Marine Science. Using a combination of articulated arm-mounted, handheld laser, and structured light 3D scanners, the team was able to scan 323 individual bone elements of the blue whale in just 9 days. This chapter will cover 3D scanner setup, calibration, scanning, and data editing and the workflow for 3D printing the orca skull at full size on smaller 3D printers. All of this 3D data is online and can be downloaded for free at www.morphosource.org.
