Frequently Asked Questions

Open Heritage 3D is an initiative to provide free access to high resolution 3D data of cultural heritage sites across the world. It is a joint project between CyArk, Historic Environment Scotland and the University of South Florida Libraries.

The founding members of the OHA, consist of experts and organizational leaders from CyArk, Historic Environment Scotland, and the University of South Florida Libraries, who together have significant repositories of legacy and on-going 3D research and documentation projects. These groups offer unique insight into not only the best practices for 3D data capture and sharing, but also have come together around concerns dealing with standards, formats, approach, ethics, and archive commitment. Together, the OHA has begun the journey to provide open access to cultural heritage 3D data, while maintaining integrity, security, and standards relating to discoverable dissemination.

Open Heritage 3D invites institutions that collect high resolution 3D data of cultural heritage to contact us at admin@openheritage3d.org to discuss participation in the project.

You do not need an account. After hitting download on the relevant project page you will be asked for your name, organization and email address. You will then be emailed the links to download the datasets.

The size of each dataset varies by site. The average download size per site is approximately 25GB.

Unfortunately we are unable to accommodate any requests for datasets on physical media.

There are five possible data types that are hosted by Open Heritage. These are LiDAR - Terrestrial, LiDAR - Aerial, Photogrammetry - Terrestrial, Photogrammetry - Aerial and Short Range Scans. Individual projects may include one or more of these data types.

A site that is marked as "Upcoming" means that the content owner has indicated that they will release the data and are in the process or preparing it for distribution. We are unable to provide any further information about the intended release date.

An overview of how to work with Open Heritage datasets is outlined in this blog post.

An overview of how to work with Open Heritage datasets is outlined in this blog post.

The raw 3D data provided for most datasets is not suitable for direct printing. Data must be processed into a watertight 3D mesh before it is usable in 3D printing applications.

All datasets available through Open Heritage are licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses. The specific terms vary by dataset and are set by the content owner. For specific license terms please refer to the project page for the relevant project.

Most datasets are not available for commercial use, although this varies by dataset. For specific license terms please refer to the project page for the relevant project.

Open Heritage 3D invites institutions that collect high resolution 3D data of cultural heritage to visit our Contribution Page to discuss participation in the project.

Open Heritage 3D provides a DOI for each dataset. The DOI provides a canonical and stable reference that can be accessed and reused. Data use can be easily tracked and ensures that data collectors are appropriately recognized. A suggested citation for each dataset is outlined at the bottom of each project page.

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is an alphanumeric string assigned to uniquely identify an object. It is tied to a metadata description of the object as well as to a digital location, such as a URL, where all the details about the object are accessible. All datasets available via Open Heritage 3D are assigned a DOI.

Open Heritage 3D is currently supported by the founding members of the Open Heritage Alliance, CyArk, Historic Environment Scotland and the University of South Florida Libraries.