Virtual Sun around Fossilized Oyster Reef

Visualization of the World’s largest fossil oyster reef using shaded digital surface model generated from terrestrial laser scanning data, where approximately one billion points represent the entire scene of around 459 m².

Reef surface was illuminated by moving the virtual sun every 30 degrees (12 azimuth angles from 20-350). This technique provides paleontologists an interactive approach to virtually inspect the oyster reef, and to interpret the shell surface by changing the light source direction.