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Auckland Museum's Maori and Pacific Island artefacts are being turned into 3D computer images by final-year engineering students.
The artefacts are scanned with a laser and then computer software is used to create a 3D representation, which will be used by the museum for research and documentation.
A wahaika (whale mouth) club that belonged to Captain Cook, the metre-long Kaitaia Carving and a Papua New Guinean canoe end shaped like a crocodile head were among the first 10 items to be scanned.
Auckland University senior engineering lecturer Xun Xu said laser scanning was not new but the students were using it on different materials.
They consulted the museum and were using a New Zealand-designed low-power laser to ensure no damage was done to the artefacts.
"The students have found it very interesting, as well as challenging."
Auckland Museum head of collections Oliver Stead said: "This technology provides the most impartial way of recording an artefact. A photographic archive has a degree of interpretation from the photographer, but this is completely objective."
