2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper is centered around teaching engineering students non-industrial uses of 3D scanning, especially in preservation of art and historical artifacts. The author has been employing 3D scanning for non-industrial uses such as customized human products in orthotics and prosthetics. However, since he strongly values critical importance of preservation of cultural and scientific knowledge as much as unearthing or understanding them, his paper encompasses a comprehensive look at the existing literature, also including work done in ship wrecks or anthropology areas, history of 2D and 3D scanning, their impact in digitizing efforts of various art forms, and physically replicating them with the help of new technologies like 3D printing. After setting the fundamentals and current state of artifact preservation, this paper focuses on 3D scanner use cases in preserving artifacts like paintings and statues, and replicating those artifacts by employing methods like 3D printing and room temperature vulcanization (RTV) molding. Student works completed outside class activities are included within the scope of this paper as well as its relation to student learning and ABET requirements. The paper is concluded with continued efforts focusing on possible future work.