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For conservators, registrars, archivists and collections managers, physical handling and transport are among the principal sources of risk to fragile objects. Yet documenting condition before and after loan, treatment or display remains an indispensable requirement of responsible stewardship.
Traditional condition reports rely heavily on written descriptions paired with static, two- dimensional photography, leaving blind spots subject to human interpretation and inconsistent studio lighting. To solve this, the 3sixty° documentation service offers a standardised method that removes much of this ambiguity.
By capturing objects in full continuous rotation within a controlled 4K imaging environment, it produces an objective visual baseline of the entire surface.
3sixty°was created by Joshua Haruni, whose background combines photojournalism with 20 years in the natural diamond trade.
Faced with the challenge of selling natural colour diamonds online to buyers who could not physically handle the stones, Haruni needed to show each stone exactly as it was while preventing returns. After buying successive existing imaging systems and finding that none captured colour and lustre accurately, he built his own machine with integrated lighting to produce 4K footage with precise colour grading. Jewellers, auction houses and private collectors sought out his service for their own pieces, and 3sixty° now films jewellery, watches, antiquities and objets d'art, with videos appearing in museum exhibitions.
Unlike photogrammetry and three- dimensional renders, which reconstruct a surface from stitched still images, 3sixty° records real time video. Specular highlights, fine scratches, surface deposits and small structural changes are recorded as they are, often at a level of detail the naked eye misses, without the distortions that reconstruction can introduce.
One of the principal hazards in collections care is shipping valuable artefacts to external studios for digitisation. The 3sixty° system addresses this directly through its modular design. The machine travels with the operator and is assembled on the client's premises, allowing filming to take place inside a secure vault, conservation studio or archive room. Objects remain within their own environment, removing the need for transit insurance and packing, and the handling that goes with them. Any object that can be safely placed before the camera can be recorded in a single session.
A film recorded before an item is treated, lent or moved can be set alongside a second film on its return, making any change to the surface visible at once. In the trade this use emerged almost by accident when clients reviewing footage noticed scratches on pieces returned from workshops or consignment, and the film settled the matter. Armed with the same evidence, institutions can resolve questions of condition and support insurance claims without lengthy dispute.
Each session also generates up to eight high- resolution stills and an optional interactive spin file, which lets the user rotate the object on screen with a finger or mouse. Because these files are light enough to send by WhatsApp or view in a standard web browser, they offer a practical way of placing items held in storage before scholars, curators and the public without moving the physical piece.
To fix the date of a record, 3sixty° can timestamp its films on the Bitcoin blockchain. This gives each film a date that can be verified independently of both 3sixty° and the client, so that a record cannot later be backdated. Over time these consecutive films build into a record of how an object or collection is ageing, made to the same standard developed to sell high value diamonds, jewellery and objets d'art.
By bringing that standard to the heritage sector, 3sixty° offers conservators, curators and archivists a means of condition assessment and display that neither handles nor moves the object.
