Digital Life

09/21/2026

Here at the UMass Amherst and the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst , the Digital Life 3D team (digitallife3d.org) is very excited to officially announce the public release of the 3D model of "Sarara" on Sketchfab (see open-access links below) - a 33-year-old male (shoulder height=264 cm) African Bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) that we scanned with GoPro cameras and handheld Canon EMEA Pro T6i cameras in the field (following prior published methods in our lab, references available on request). This work took several years to complete, and Sarara was filmed in Samburu, Kenya.

This research was done in collaboration with Save the Elephants
(savetheelephants.org). Save the Elephants has been a wonderful partner for us, and also kindly funded this research and provided access to Sarara, as well as to other images and video of this elephant. We thank the many hard-working Kenyans and STE staff members who helped with this work. We especially thank Giacomo D'Ammando who was a wonderful partner at every step, and Frank Pope for their assistance during this long process.

We believe that this is the most accurate 3D model of an actual live African Elephant created to date, and we are pleased to allow others to view and download the model for as an open-access scientific model (no commercial use is allowed).

We base this view on the many months of painstaking work by Johnson Martin - the remarkable 3D artist and my main partner at the Digital Life Project, as well as the assistance of the STE staff, who have an intimate knowledge of Sarara, and elephants in general. The accuracy of the model is based in part on the carefully constructed internal skeleton (this was based on a generic adult male elephant), which we then combined with the 3D scan of the exterior.

Our hope is that this 3D model acts as both a valuable scientific tool - for researching African elephant morphology and body condition, and also as a powerful educational and conservation tool for appreciating these remarkable animals.

Links to the models are below. Please DM me if you have any questions.

3D model with skin texture
https://skfb.ly/pNRyG

3D model with internal skeleton
https://skfb.ly/pNRyI

04/07/2026

The Digital Life Director Duncan Irshcick is very honored and excited to be a Plenary Speaker for the 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 (𝗣𝗕𝗗𝗖) 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲! Thanks especially to Dr. Tess Sanguila and her amazing group for extending an invitation. His talk will be at 9:35 PM EST tonight (Tuesday, April 7th) - see page below for more information on the other amazing speakers. He will be talking about our 3D work in relation to conservation.

To register for the Congress: https://lnkd.in/e6YnJGXP

To learn more about the Congress - including the list of speakers:

https://lnkd.in/emQpuJ_J

😆 🦍 🫎 🐮 🦛 🐢 🐬

10/06/2025

The Digital Life Director - Duncan Irschick - had a great conversation with Ben Goode on his Elasmocast Podcast on sharks, conservation and the future of machine learning in conservation - you can listen to it here

3D modeling has been the "big thing" in many fields in recent years, and marine biology is no exception. With that said, rendering three dimensional reconstr...

09/09/2025

Our whole team was heartbroken to hear of the passing of Kalluk- a large, beautiful and amazing male polar bear that we had the opportunity to work with at the San Diego Zoo several years ago. We were in fact able to 3D scan him and are using his overall body shape to develop new metrics to study body condition in polar bears. His legacy lives on!

3D scan of Kalluk
https://skfb.ly/p9CMt

https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/beloved-san-diego-zoo-polar-bear-kalluk-dies-at-24/

The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is mourning the loss of one of its most iconic animal residents.

06/21/2025

Great article written by & @ on our recent paper in Royal Society Open Science Journal using models to study shark scaling. Credit also to co-authors & as well for their valuable contributions

https://theconversation.com/sharks-come-in-many-different-shapes-and-sizes-but-they-all-follow-a-centuries-old-mathematical-rule-259050?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=bylinecopy_url_button

06/19/2025

Very excited to be part of this work - Upwell has been a great partner for us - and this is our third Leatherback sea turtle we have done overall! Our hope is to do more so we can complete a more complete ontogenetic series.

05/23/2025

In these very tough times for us all in Academia, we are still trying to move forward and provide something positive in terms of conservation and scientific tools for the community.

Therefore, as part of the Digital Life Project, I am pleased to release three open-access high-quality 3D models of marine mammals - In order below - Adult Common Dolphin (Delphinus delphis), Adult Gray Whale (Eschrichtius robustus), and a juvenile Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).

These 3D models were created to provide tools for scientists interested in body condition, energetics and body shape, among others. They were created by CG artist Johnson Martin in collaboration with Dr. Laurens Howle from Duke University and Dr. Frank Fish from Westchester University.

Johnson used images and video, both open-access, and also from Dr. Howle and Dr. Fish, to reconstruct these adult (Gray and Common) and Juvenile (Humpback) specimens. Links to the models are below. BOEM provided funding for the research.

Common Dolphin
https://skfb.ly/pxvuw

Gray Whale
https://skfb.ly/pxvus

Juvenile Humpback whale
https://skfb.ly/pxvuu

04/14/2025

In collaboration with the Museum of Natural History in Vienna (https://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/en), we are very pleased to release an animated 3D model of an adult male Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis). This individual was originally beautifully 3D scanned by the museum, and they kindly allowed us to access the digital specimen to retopologize it, and to animate it. UMASS undergrad Mohammed Al Zubaidi did a great job on the model using hashtag , and other software, with assistance from PhD student Josh Medina. Thanks especially to Viola Winkler and the museum staff for her and their assistance.

As always, these models are and for scientific and educational use. 😁



Link to 3D model
https://skfb.ly/pvWts

04/02/2025

Excited to give a talk on our 3D work, and also a 3D photogrammetry workshop at Union College on April 29th! Special thanks to my awesome colleague Kate Feller, who has organized this event. See link and poster below for details!

https://www.union.edu/templeton/events
😃🦈🦅🌵

03/16/2025

Digital Life Director Duncan Irschick will be giving a seminar at this coming Wednesday, March 19th (details in poster below). He will also be giving a hands-on workshop on 3D photogrammetry on March 20th!