Multimedia at work

ancestors of contemporary Inuit and Eskimo groups of the North American Arctic and Greenland. By the late 12th or early 13th century, Thule groups had expanded eastward from the Bering Strait region into the Canadian Arctic. Unlike northwestern Alaska, the coastlines of the Eastern Arctic were largely devoid of driftwood. Consequently, the Thule people used whale bone to construct the roofing frameworks of their coastline winter houses. They erected the roof framework over a house pit furnished with a flagstone floor, raised sleeping platform, kitchen, and storage areas; and covered the roof frame with hide and a thick layer of turf, moss, and snow.1,2 Archaeologists know little about how these enigmatic houses were constructed because few exist intact. Reconstructing a 3D model of a Thule house can provide new insights into how the Thule people constructed and used these dwellings. Our reconstruction of a Thule whalebone house provides a good case study of laser scanning’s use on an object of complex geometry. The reconstruction process would have been difficult, if not impossible, to resolve using 2D drawings because manual drafting or 2D computeraided design (CAD) can’t easily solve a 3D structural system based on complex skeletal elements, such as a whale’s mandibles, cranium, and maxillas.