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Smithsonian Makes Images, 3D Scans and CAD Files from Archive Free to Download

Smithsonian Open Access features nearly 3 million files and offers an incredible level of detail

By Rain Noe - February 26, 2020

More than a few museums have been making their image archives freely downloadable. The Smithsonian has done them one better, posting both images and digital 3D scans that you can download as CAD files and do whatever you want with. "This includes images and data," the Institution writes, "from across the Smithsonian's 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo." The total number of downloadables is nearly 3 million.

The portal for all of this is the Smithsonian Open Access website. If you're interested specifically in the 3D content and CAD files, you'll want to jump into their 3D Voyager section, where you can download scans of wonderfully random objects (a Morse-Vail telegraph key, the crew hatch of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, a letter opener from the Black Star Line), vehicles (the supersonic Bell X-1 test airplane, the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Wright Brothers' Flyer from 1903, the complete Apollo 11), furniture, statues, objects, old package designs and more.

The level of detail you can access is nuts. As one example, check out the aforementioned Bell X-1, where you can download both the 3D model and extensive documentation of the cockpit:

Nuts, no? You'd simply never be able to see up close, and pore over, this level of detail if you were at the museums in person.

Check out more 3D stuff here, or go here for the full combo of 2D and 3D files available. And thank you Smithsonian!

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Smithsonian Makes Images, 3D Scans and CAD Files from Archive Free to Download

Doctor Shields

a year ago

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An amazing resource! The 3D selection is only 74 pieces right now, but still very interesting. Some favorites include the mammoth skeleton, a shirtless George Washington with a sword, and the costume boots for the Wizard in The Wiz on Broadway worn by Carl Hall. The Panel for a cabinet door is just awesome- snakes emerging from cornucopias and crutches in trees. So cool. May have to attempt a 3D print of George.

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Richard Chritz

a year ago

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NASA also does this too if you are looking to start your own space agency: https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/

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- Deba Shanta
  
  Richard Chritz
  
  a year ago
  
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  ok
  
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Michael DiTullo

a year ago

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this is pretty rad!

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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.