3D scanning a one-piece dinosaur skeleton in minute detail

One of the most iconic scenes depicted in a dinosaur exhibit has to be the Stegosaurus and Allosaurus facing off in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The 26-foot-long Stegosaurus represents Colorado’s State Dinosaur. Not just the species of dinosaur, but the individual specimen that was adopted to represent the state. Stegosaurus was a herbivorous dinosaur weighing up to 10 tons that inhabited the area now called Colorado 150 million years ago. What makes this particular Stegosaurus so special is not the fact that it was found in Cañon City, Colorado, or even that it was mostly complete, a very rare thing for dinosaur skeletons. It was found by a class of high school students on a fossil-hunting field trip in 1936, and the teacher of that class of students, Frederick Carl Kessler, was able to arrange for his students to work alongside professional paleontologists to excavate the fossil skeleton.

Enter Mike Triebold of Triebold Paleontology, Inc. (TPI) in Woodland Park, Colorado. TPI restores and mounts fossil skeletons and creates skeleton casts, supplying them to museums across the globe. The company’s clients include the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The TPI headquarters house a collection of casts and original fossil specimens, which are on exhibit at the company’s hands-on natural history museum, the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center.

Mike Triebold was looking to add a Stegosaurus to his catalog of casts, but not just any Stegosaurus. He was focused on getting the famous Kessler Stegosaurus at the Denver Museum for the project if at all possible because the new Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience in Canon City was being built and they wanted a copy of the Stegosaurus that was collected by Kessler near Canon City. RGDE owner Zach Reynolds’ grandfather regularly accompanied Kessler on dinosaur digs from the 40s through the 60s, so the Stegosaurus has both family and community ties.

Discussions ensued and with the Denver Museum’s blessing, the work began.