About the Project
Wentworth Woodhouse, located near Wentworth village in South Yorkshire is one of the grandest Georgian houses in England. Built for the 1st Marquess of Rockingham from circa 1725, the house stands in 87 acres of gardens and grounds, including a deer park and lakes.
After years of neglect, the house is now owned by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, whose sole purpose is to regenerate the house and wider site. A chance discussion with a colleague at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) led to our involvement in the project.
Amongst the challenges for the preservation trust team is to look at how to restore some parts of the house and its contents, and also to monitor the condition of these assets going forward. One of these assets is the white marble statue of the ancient Roman general and politician Germanicus, which was made by an Italian sculptor and arrived at the house in the 1760s.
The Wentworth team had two requirements with regard to the statue. Firstly, to get a detailed record of the statue for preservation purposes and secondly to investigate opportunities for making replicas of the statue that could be sold to members of the public.
3D Scanning & Printing
The scanning team used the K-Scan handheld laser scanner to capture the details of the Germanicus statue to an accuracy of 0.020 mm. The K-Scan gave the team the flexibility to easily scan around the statue in the relatively tight confines of its location within the Pillared Hall, plus its integrated infrared and laser scanners combined to provide exceptional efficiency and accuracy.
The scan data was used to accurately record the condition of the statue; information that the Wentworth team will use as a starting point for future analysis of the statue to monitor any degradation. The data from the full-sized statue was also scaled down to produce a 300mm high 3D printed replica of Germanicus which the house’s marketing team is using as they consider options for producing little Germanicus statuettes to sell in the gift shop.