I participated in a project at MIT in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston. The project is focused on digitizing and restoring antique musical instruments, then recreating them in a playable form to uncover new insights.
There is an MIT News article about this project. You can read the full article here.
Soprano ocarina [Accession Number 1984.309]. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
3D mesh, top view.
3D mesh, bottom view.
Jet stream velocity in the x-plane.
Jet stream velocity in the y-plane.
Our team uses CT scanners to digitize the shapes of the instruments and conducts acoustic measurements without causing any damage to them. Since it is impossible to measure every conceivable scenario, my main role was to infer the instrument sounds through numerical simulations and validating the results by recreating the measurements.
A full-sized violin being measured by using an impact hammer and a laser Doppler vibrometer.
Dance master’s violin housed at the MFA, being measured using the same setup.
In addition to the acoustic aspects, this project is multidisciplinary in nature, enabling research in materials science and archaeology. Please refer to the aforementioned article and the video above for further details.
This project is currently very active. In addition to this whistle, the museum houses a wide variety of instruments, e.g., wind, string, and percussion instruments, and we are making steady, incremental progress. So please look forward to future updates!
