Venus von Milo

3D DIGITIZING AND VISUALIZATION / PBR / RENDERING / 3D ANIMATION

The Venus of Milo is a sculpture of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The 2.02 meter tall original - made of marble - was discovered in 1820 by a farmer on the island of Milos in search of building material and, via various detours, came into the possession of the art collection of the Louvre in Paris. It is still there today and is one of the most important surviving works of art from Greek antiquity.

The copy of the sculpture digitized by digitus.art can be dated to the end of the 19th century. A plaque on the underside of the base bears the maker's signature: »Kochendörfer / Original Hofkunstanstalt, Medaille F. Kunst München 1891«. The alabaster and marble figure, measuring 49 × 16 × 14 cm, was captured by photogrammetry and subsequently converted into an optimized 3D model.

The particular challenge here was to correctly capture the different materials and also to represent their properties in the digital copy. This was achieved in a virtual scene with simulated lighting and the process of Physically Based Rendering. In this process, the interaction of light rays with surfaces is simulated according to physical principles and the reflection properties are calculated.