Photogrammetry of “Wet” Pathology Museum Specimens: A Pilot Project

Medical museums around the world have many specimens of historical and teaching value in their collections. Some of these are bones that have been prepared to illustrate normal anatomy. Others consist of organs preserved in liquid fixative (“wet” specimens) and mounted in glass or plexiglass containers that demonstrate the pathology of disease. Digitization of these specimens has the advantage of making them available for viewing by more students or website visitors than is possible in the museum itself. Photogrammetry is one method for doing this that enables the reconstruction of high-quality 3D models using standard specimen photographs. However, although relatively easy to perform on bones, its use with “wet” objects is more difficult and special steps are required to achieve optimal results. Using specimens from the Sir William Osler aortic aneurysm collection at the Maude Abbott Medical Museum, we developed a relatively simple and cost-effective photogrammetry process that gave good reconstructions of most specimens. We expect that future developments, such as the use of artificial intelligence-based techniques, may improve this result.