3D Developments

Here are some of the developments we're looking at in respect of 3D modelling. Photogrammetry, a large quantity of still photos that are processed to make a 3D image, can be used on a landscape scale or on a small object scale, so we're experimenting with both. You can click on the arrows to view images in 3D, and all 3D and video sequences can be viewed full-screen if you wish.


The image above of Cromer parish church and the church square was made with about 400 drone photos taken on an early May morning in 2024. We intend to develop it to show features of the church.


Once the 3D image is created, as in the image above, video sequences can be made. We've working on a longer video on the story of the church building, but to start things off we've made this short fly-round. We created a sub-set of the church and church square image as at the top of this column, with just the church itself showing. We then used the virtual camera in the software to make the video.

Alfed Savin outside the door of his Church Street shop

Cromer Museum has a number of fossils from the collection made by Alfred Savin (1860-1948). His father, Daniel Savin, was one of the first photographers in Cromer and he and Alfred developed their shop in Church Street to buy and sell fossils, pictures and souvenirs. Alfred was a geologist, palaeontologist and naturalist, writing widely on the locality and its history. The Natural History Museum in London holds part of his collection, and Spalding Museum has human-made artefacts, such as hand axes. We're supporting the Museum to extend our knowledge of Savin, plus of his predecessors and successors in such collecting.



A tooth identified as that of a mastodon from the Alfred Savin collection. Many of Savin's fossils were found by him or others locally, but he also received items from further afield. Smaller items such as these are photographed at the Museum, using a rotating turntable to turn the object in front of the camera.



This one is listed as Elephas Primigenius, showing the internal structure of the tooth. Immediate references put this in the 'Woolly Mammoth' class, but if it is a local find, it is more likely a Steppe Mammoth. If you have the expertise to help on this, do make contact with us! The local West Runton Mammoth is known as a Steppe Mammoth - and wasn't woolly!



Over the last two centuries many mammoth tucks, or parts of tusks, have been found on the beach and cliffs of the north Norfolk coast. This is the art of a tusk from the Cromer Museum collection.