'World's Largest Dinosaur' in Alberta goes digital

'The World's Largest Dinosaur' in Drumheller, Alta. was captured in a 3D scan, seen here. (Source: GeoSLAM)

TORONTO — One of Canada’s biggest and strangest tourist attractions now has a digital twin.

The 25-metre-tall Tyrannosaurus Rex statue in Drumheller, Alta., aptly named the World’s Largest Dinosaur, has drawn thousands of tourists to its gaping jaws since it was built in 2000.

A team member from GeoSLAM, a digital 3D mobile mapping company based in the U.K., recently visited the Alberta attraction and used a handheld scanner to capture an image of the 65-tonne beast.

By walking around the statue at arms length, the device was able to render a near-complete image of the dinosaur and its surroundings, including several cars and trees.

The team says it took less than five minutes to capture the image.

Digitizing giant dinosaur statues isn’t exactly what the technology was designed for. GeoSLAM bills itself as a mobile-friendly 3D scanning company that can capture comprehensive images of anything from hospitals to entire neighbourhoods.

There doesn’t appear to be a particular purpose for the scan, aside from novelty.

The Drumheller dinosaur is located in the heart of the Canadian Badlands, a region known for its dinosaur fossils and arresting rocky terrain.

The attraction was closed to the public earlier in the pandemic but has since reopened. A few weeks ago, a couple got engaged inside the tyrannosaur’s jaws.

The World’s Largest Dinosaur was built for a price tag of $1 million and is nearly five times larger than a typical T-rex.