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In the depth of the cold North Atlantic near the coast of Iceland lies the crash of a Dutch ship that sink 360 years ago while pretending to be Danish .
At the time , the Netherlands ( and all European nations ) were barred from trading with Iceland by the area ’s rule , the queen of Denmark . But Dutch smugglers skirt the forbidding by sailing to Icelandic port in ship that fly a false Danish flag .
A 3D scan of the shipwreck created during 2016 and 2018 fieldwork, shows a highly detailed view of the archaeological remains.
One of the moon-curser ' ship , named " Melckmeyd " ( " Milkmaid " ) adjoin a violent end , smashed by a storm on Oct. 16 , 1659 . The sunken vessel lay block on the sea bottom for centuries . But late endeavor by archaeologist and digital modelers have made the long - lost shipwreck accessible through avirtual reality(VR ) " plunge . " As a digital poser , Milkmaid can be explored by VR users through a headset oras an interactive video on YouTube .
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Local divers found the Milkmaid shipwreck in 1992 near a small island called Flatey , off Iceland ’s western coast . There , the cold water system preserved much of the ship ’s 108 - pes - long ( 33 meters ) lower hull in exceptional item , representatives with the late digital reconstruction project order in a instruction .
A digital reconstruction of the flute ship Melckmeyt. Archaeologists have used Vermeer’s famous painting of The Milkmaid, painted just a year before the ship was lost, for the stern design.(Image credit: Image by John McCarthy)
The ship sank with a full cargo of fish , and one gang member kick the bucket during the escape , project loss leader Kevin Martin , a doctorial candidate at the University of Iceland , reportedin July at the twenty-third International Conference in Information Visualization in Paris .
The shipwreck was first investigated in 1993 by nautical archaeologists with the National Museum of Iceland . They identify Milkmaid as a flute ship , a eccentric of merchandiser watercraft that was vernacular during the 17th hundred .
Then in 2016 , Martin and other researchers from the University of Iceland and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands conducted high - resolution scan of Milkmaid , generating a digital model of the battered ship . They then used that data to create aVR dive experiencefor an display at the Reykjavik Maritime Museum , according to the affirmation .
A digital reconstruction of the wreck of flute ship Melckmeyt as it might have appeared the morning after the storm.(Image credit: Image by John McCarthy)
During the three - minute invigorate video — described in the display as " 2.5D " rather than rightful 3-D — substance abuser can research the underwater surround around Milkmaid as " loon , " bet around in 360 degrees as the camera " swims " over and past the shipwreck . Through this VR experience , anyone who canput on a headsetor watch a Youtube picture can instantly pull in admittance to an important archeological situation and artifact , Martin and his Centennial State - author John McCarthy , a investigator with the College of Humanities , Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University in Australia , wrote in the conference presentation .
" This approach maximizes the good sense of concentration in the underwater environment and replicates as closely as potential the experience of diving for the non - diver , " the co - author wrote .
Milkmaid was just one of a fleet of illegal ships send by Dutch merchant to on the QT hold cereal , ceramic and timberland to Icelandic ports in 1659 , grant to the instruction . As Iceland ’s oldest wreck , Milkmaid offers a glimpse of this troubled fourth dimension in the country ’s past tense , " when Denmark ruled the island and had a monopoly over trade here for a period of 200 years , " Martin said . " It shine a light on a engrossing period of Icelandic history . "
A scene from the virtual dive, showing virtual divers swimming over the wreck as it appears today, with areas of the wreck labelled in yellow.(Image credit: Image by John McCarthy)
earlier published onLive scientific discipline .
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