Now scanningBay 3
Platypterygius skull
CMN-P 4412 · Albian, 104 Ma
Pass 3 / 562 %
Exhibit 07 · Lightline · East Wing
Every bone,read by a lineof light.
Behind the glass of the Open Scan Room, our conservators laser-scan one fossil a night. Watch a 104-million-year-old ichthyosaur skull become forty million measured points, then walk the model before the bone goes back to its drawer.
Point cloud±0.04 mm
25,614,208
points captured tonight
18.2 °C · 41 % RH · stable
02 · What the conservators see
The scan room console, in public.
The same screen the night team works from is mirrored onto the gallery wall. Nothing is staged: if a pass drifts, you watch it get rescanned.
Lightline Console
Scanned this season
312 specimens
+9 this week
Points tonight
25.6M measured
pass 3 running
Mean deviation
0.038 mm
inside ±0.05 spec
Watching now
38 visitors
cap 60
| Catalogue | Specimen | Points | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| CMN-P 4412 | Platypterygius skullAlbian, 104 Ma | 25.6M | Scanning |
| CMN-V 1187 | Smilodon fatalis mandiblePleistocene, 13 ka | 11.2M | Meshing |
| CMN-I 0931 | Meganeura wing, slabCarboniferous, 300 Ma | 4.8M | Queued |
| CMN-M 2205 | Narwhal tusk, sinistral whorlCollected 1931 | 9.4M | Published |
| CMN-P 0078 | Walliserops trilobiteDevonian, 400 Ma | 6.1M | Published |
03 · From drawer to light
One night, four careful hands-offs.
Lightline exists because most of the collection never leaves its drawers. A scan is the gentlest way we know to let three million specimens be studied without being handled.
- 01
Out of the drawer
A conservator lifts the specimen into a foam cradle cut to its shape the week before. Nitrile gloves, no metal, nothing that warms the bone.
- 02
One thin line, many passes
A 450 nm line sweeps the surface while the turntable steps a quarter of a degree. Five passes, five aspects, roughly two hours each.
- 03
Points become a surface
Overnight the passes are aligned and meshed. Anything outside ±0.05 mm is flagged and rescanned before the model is signed off.
- 04
Back home, open to all
The bone returns to its drawer by morning. The model goes online under CC BY, free to print, measure or teach with.
- Specimens published
- 3,904
- Points on record
- 14.2 TB
- Downloads last year
- 211k
04 · Visit
Sit on the gallery bench for a pass.
Lightline is included with museum admission. Evening scans run late on Thursdays and Fridays; entry is timed so the room never holds more than sixty.
- Tue – Sun
- 10:00 – 18:00
- Late scans · Thu, Fri
- until 22:00
- Admission
- Included · £14
- Where
- East Wing, level 2