London non-profit's work gives Canadians unprecedented view of Vimy war memorial

Digitally preserving Canadian history is a process that takes a lot of time, expertise, and computing power, and for Zenon Andrusyszyn, that makes it all the more rewarding to see that hard work made available to the public.

Earlier this year, Andrusyszyn's non-profit group, CANADIGM, spent more than a week creating digital replicas of 15 maquettes, or prototype sculptures, created roughly a century ago for the construction of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.

Late last month, those 3D scans were unveiled as part of an interactive online project led by the Vimy Foundation, in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum and the Military Communications and Electronics Museum.

"The fellows that were working on it, they're all volunteers, so they were really dedicated to get this work done, and they wanted to do it well," said Andrusyszyn, CANADIGM's executive director and founder.

Andrusyszyn was among those on hand for the project's unveiling, held on March 21 at the Canadian War Museum. 

"This is going to really allow the public to see (the maquettes) up close. They can actually spin them around, they can look at the expressions on the tops of their faces. We're quite proud to have been asked to do this," he said.

"It's quite humbling to be in the presence of these pieces."

The new exhibit comes as Canada commemorates the Battle of Vimy Ridge from April 9 to 12, 1917. The three-day battle to take Hill 145 from Germany left some 3,600 Canadian troops dead and more than 7,000 injured.

Afternoon Drive8:403D scans of Vimy Ridge maquettes by London-based company

They're saving Canadian history with state of the art technology. CANADIGM, a non-profit based in London, is using 3D scanners to digitally preserve what will later become the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. Zenon Andrusyszyn, the founder and executive director, joins host Colin Butler to discuss.

Unveiled in 1936, the monument honours the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who served during the First World War, and the more than 66,000 who gave their lives.

Designed by the memorial's architect, Walter Allward, the plaster maquettes are smaller draft versions of the 20 symbolic human figures featured on the memorial, which is located where the battle took place

Originally sculpted by Allward out of clay, plaster moulds would be formed and sent to France to be scaled up out of limestone. The life-sized plaster maquettes were later brought back to Canada, and are now on display at the two museums involved in the project.

It took the team several hundred hours to process the data into 3D renderings, which were then scaled down for online exhibition, Andrusyszyn said.

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They not only allow users to look closely at the maquettes, including those for figures sitting at the top of the memorial, but they provide a glimpse into what went into creating the maquettes.

"Seeing the backs of these maquettes, the way they're structurally constructed from a visual and artistic perspective… hopefully a lot of art classes will be able to have a look at them from different angles" and learn how they're pieced together, he said.

CANADIGM hopes to travel to northern France later this year to scan carvings made by soldiers on the walls of tunnels dug beneath Vimy.