Recent progress in 3D scanning technology has provided an unprecedented perspective of the Titanic wreck.
On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, just four days into its inaugural journey from Southampton, England, to New York, USA.
The luxury liner carried approximately 2,224 passengers and crew when it collided with an iceberg at 23:40, ultimately descending to its final resting place 12,500 feet below the ocean’s surface.
Over a century later, numerous artifacts like dishes, shoes, and furniture have been discovered, yet much about the tragedy remained unknown until now.
National Geographic and Atlantic Productions have collaborated to create a documentary, Titanic: The Digital Resurrection, showcasing the findings from scans of the wreck and their role in creating an ‘exact digital twin’.
In the trailer for the documentary, National Geographic notes that despite numerous expeditions to the Titanic, visibility is limited due to the darkness.
“This digital twin is the most impactful thing since the wreck was first found,” the documentary asserts, with one commentator stating, “This is a view I’ve never had before.”
How was the ‘digital twin’ created?
In 2022, over a span of three weeks, Magellan, a deep-sea mapping company from the Channel Islands, deployed two remotely operated underwater vehicles—aptly named Romeo and Juliet—to navigate the Titanic’s wreckage and capture images of the vessel.
An incredible 715,000 images were taken, accompanied by laser measurements, leading National Geographic to report it as ‘the largest underwater 3D scan ever made, amassing 16 terabytes of data (equivalent to the storage of six million e-books).
These images were combined with computer mapping technology to build the digital model and reveal new insights into the notorious ship.
What insights did the model provide?
National Geographic explains the model is ‘densely detailed’, with a life-size video rendering projected onto a warehouse’s side, enabling researchers to ‘walk alongside it and zoom in and out on individual features’.
This allowed for closer inspection of ship elements, such as a steam valve from the boiler room, which the scan suggested was left open, possibly to maintain an emergency generator as the ship went down.
The 3D scanning confirmed that the ship lies ‘broken in two pieces’ with the bow and stern separated by about 2,600 feet.
Additionally, it shed light on what may have happened to the stern, a mystery researchers had been unable to conclusively explain.
The scan indicated that the hull ‘descended in a straight line and is largely still intact—which shows it neatly wedged into the ocean floor’.
Retired naval officer and Titanic historian Parks Stephenson, upon examining the scan, hypothesized that the ‘back half of the ship spiraled as it sank’, leading the stern to break apart and ‘disintegrate into rubble’.
The report mentioned: “The Titanic twin adds to a growing list of similar models made of archaeological and cultural sites around the world that both preserve these fragile places and provide a new means of exploring them,” the report notes.
Stephenson concluded: “Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell.”
Titanic: The Digital Resurrection is slated for release on Friday (April 11) on National Geographic, with streaming available the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.