Grube Messel

In August, we embarked on a truly remarkable project that took us back millions of years in time. Collaborating with our partners at Fraunhofer IGD and the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Grube Messel, we had the incredible opportunity to digitize a rare fossil of an ancient horse species, the Eurohippus Messelensis, discovered just a year earlier near Darmstadt.

The so-called “Urpferd” is a distinct species that once roamed central Europe around 48 million years ago. Unlike the horses we know today, this prehistoric creature was quite small, about the size of a wiener dog. The skeleton has been arranged in two separate parts, making it easier to scientifically analyse.

Our cutting-edge 3D digitization technology allowed us to automatically digitize the fossil with highest precision. Now that the digitization process is complete, the resulting 3D model can be viewed as one piece in our online viewer. The digital twin preserves the fragile fossil, ensuring that this ancient piece of history can be studied by researchers worldwide. Furthermore, the model was used to generate a 3D animation, showing the surface texture of the relief close up. The “Urpferd“ was also 3D printed at a 1:10 scale, which resulted in a stunning, color faithful reproduction. This shows the level of detail and color accuracy provided by CultArm3D and demonstrates the versatility of 3D digitization, a revolutionary way to document and preserve our past.