How 3D, Sound, Digital Twins, and XR Help Protect Musical History
Preserving a historic musical instrument is not only about protecting its wood, metal, or varnish. For wind instruments, especially historic pipe organs and their ancient predecessors such as the Hydraulis, heritage also lives in movement, airflow, sound, and the spaces where the music is heard.
These instruments are often mechanically complex and very fragile. Many cannot be played or handled frequently without risk of damage. At the same time, traditional documentation methods such as photographs, drawings, or simple audio recordings cannot fully capture how an instrument really works or how it sounds in its original environment.
Today, new digital technologies allow us to study, preserve, and share these instruments in much more complete and safer ways, while reducing physical handling and supporting long-term conservation.
From Physical Object to a 3D Digital Twin
The first step is creating an accurate 3D digital model of the instrument and, when relevant, its surrounding space. This is done by combining different techniques such as 3D scanning, which captures complex shapes with high precision, photogrammetry, which builds 3D models from photographs and preserves surface details, and digital modelling, which helps represent internal parts and reconstruct missing elements.
The result is a digital twin: a virtual version of the instrument that can be used to measure parts, compare instruments, document their condition, and even help design supports or replicas for educational display. For public access, these models can be viewed directly on the web or in virtual environments, allowing anyone to explore the instrument without touching the original.
Understanding How the Instrument Works
Wind instruments and organs are considered living heritage because they are meant to be played. Their cultural value depends on how physical actions, such as pressing keys or opening valves, turn into sound. For organs, this means studying how keys and stops activate pipes, how air is supplied and regulated, how pipes are arranged and tuned, and how wear and aging affect performance.
By modelling how these parts interact, people can explore how sound is produced and why two similar instruments may behave differently, without risking damage to historic originals. This is especially useful for education and training.
Preserving the Sound and the Space
An instrument truly comes to life through its sound. But for organs, sound is also shaped by the building: churches and historic halls strongly influence what listeners hear. That is why sound preservation looks at both the instrument’s own sound and the acoustics of the space.
This includes recording how the instrument responds to playing, how its tone changes, and how different pipes or materials affect sound quality. It also involves capturing how sound reflects and travels inside a church or hall, making it possible for digital systems to recreate what it feels like to listen from different positions in the room.
Together, this makes it possible to experience not only how an organ sounds, but how it sounds in its real historical setting.
Recreating Lost or Fragile Sound Safely
Some instruments are incomplete, too fragile to play, or no longer exist in their original form. In these cases, digital simulation helps researchers and educators explore how an instrument might have sounded in the past, what happens if airflow or materials change, and how the building affects the sound.
These simulations allow safe experimentation and help bring back sounds that would otherwise be lost, without putting real instruments at risk.
Digital Twins for Preventive Conservation
Digital twins can also support preventive conservation. Historic instruments are sensitive to humidity and temperature changes, dust and pollution, vibrations, and mechanical stress. By combining environmental sensors with digital models, conservators can monitor conditions and detect risks early.
With the help of data analysis and AI-based tools, patterns can be identified that support better maintenance planning. The goal is not to replace expert conservators, but to give them better information to protect instruments before damage occurs.
Making Heritage Accessible Through XR
Once shape, sound, and function are digitally connected, the information can be shared through interactive 3D models on websites, augmented reality experiences in museums, and virtual reality environments for immersive learning.
In these experiences, users can not only see instruments but also hear them, explore how they work, and understand how sound changes with different configurations and spaces. This helps bring complex musical heritage to students, visitors, and the general public in engaging and meaningful ways.
Ensuring Long-Term Value of Digital Heritage
For digital heritage to remain useful over time, it must be well documented, stored in durable formats, and easy to reuse and share. Clear metadata, open standards, and good documentation ensure that future researchers, educators, and institutions can continue to use and build on the digital models and recordings.
This is especially important in European heritage infrastructures and cultural heritage cloud platforms, where many projects and institutions collaborate and share resources.
Preserving Instruments and the Knowledge around them
By combining 3D capture, sound analysis, digital twins, and immersive experiences, we can preserve not only the physical appearance of historic wind instruments, but also their sound, function, and cultural meaning.
These technologies help protect fragile originals, support conservation, and make musical heritage accessible to people around the world, ensuring that these extraordinary instruments continue to be understood and appreciated for generations to come.