http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32742622
Priceless historical artefacts have been lost recently, to violence in Iraq and earthquakes in Nepal. But "cyber-archaeologists" are working with volunteers to put you just a few clicks away from seeing these treasures - in colourful, three-dimensional detail. The effort began with a conversation between two young researchers in late February, days after shocking footage emerged of Islamic State militants tearing down and smashing artworks in the Mosul Museum in northern Iraq.
Chance Coughenour and Matthew Vincent are PhD students working for the Initial Training Network for Digital Cultural Heritage (ITN-DCH), an EU-funded project set up to apply new technology to cultural heritage issues. "We were talking about the destruction and [Chance] suggested that we crowd-source the reconstruction of these images, using photogrammetry and images from the public," Mr Vincent told the BBC's Science in Action programme.
Photogrammetry is a popular technique in modern cultural heritage projects. It uses software to turn multiple 2D photographs of a single object into 3D images.