The first full-size digital scan of the Titanic has provided never-before-seen "footage and stills" of the ship, 111 years after its wreckage.
The scan, carried out by Magellan, a deep-sea mapping company, and Atlantic Productions, provides a 3D view of the boat. This cutting edge technology challenges a "century's worth of human interpretation" about what happened to the British passenger liner en route to New York, Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst and historian.
The Titanic has been a historical phenomenon since sinking in 1912, with countless movies and books dedicated to its research. That following sometimes lends itself to conspiracies and anecdotal evidence.
Speaking with NBC News on Wednesday, Stephenson said this scan is a “major step to driving the narrative of the Titanic towards evidence-based, scientific research and not speculation.”
This is far from the first time the ship has been captured on camera, but what sets this scan apart is the unparalleled quality and scope. Submersive cameras typically only capture small pieces of the wreck, forcing people to try to match them together to create a distorted composite image.
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“It will be accurate but you’ll tend to make it more complete than it actually is,” Stephenson said.
Atlantic Productions said the team used photogrammetry -- the process of taking overlapping photographs of an object, structure or space, and converting them into 2D or 3D digital models.
This technique removed the element of human interpretation and relied entirely on data.
Among the revelations made in this scan was that officer's quarters -- including Captain Edward Smith's room -- are considered a "major area of deterioration." Specifically, the captain's bathtub has disappeared from view.
“Now we’re getting objective, so we can get really serious with the science of understanding the wreck,” Stephenson said.
The Titanic sunk early on April 15, 1912, five days after departing from Southampton, England. More than 1,500 people died -- including about 700 crew members -- when the ship struck an iceberg off the eastern coast of Newfoundland, Canada. It currently rests in the Atlantic Ocean, nearly 13,000 feet below the surface.
Stephenson believes the introduction of photogrammetry will extend well beyond the Titanic, or even ship wrecks. Rather, it can be employed for all underwater exploration.
