Ned Kelly's Armour and Death Mask

Ned Kelly's armour is associated with one of the most famous folk heroes in Australian history. The armour was used by the Kellys in thier last stand at the Jones' Hotel in Glenrowan, Northern Victoria. Part of the defence was the armour made by local blacksmiths from donated or stolen mouldboards from ploughs. The State Library of Victoria, who is in possession of Ned Kelly's armour, commissioned the installation of a virtual reality multimedia initiative known as Experimedia. This involved creating a virtual verson of Ned Kelly's armour to form the basis of the multimedia presentation.

Previous experience with the ModelMaker H40 laser scanner and Faro coordinate measurement arm meant that this equipment was again used to scan this cultural artefact. The scannign relies on the reflection of the laser from the material. The iron used in the armour had very poor reflectance and the acquisition process was slowed considerably as a result. After the point cloud was generated in the data acquisition process it had to be processed into a usable form. The modified data was then exported into 3D Studio Max where the texturing, modelling and rendering takes place. The plaster cast made from Ned Kelly's death mask was also scanned to provide a means to create a realistic representation of Ned Kelly himself.

The material is copyright the State Library of Victoria, for more information please contact the SLV. The SLV has demanded that all images of the Ned Kelly project be removed from all the computers and servers in Geomatics.