3D-ICONS is a pilot project funded under the European Commission’s ICT Policy Support Programme which started on 1st February 2012 and runs for three years. It brings together partners from across Europe with the relevant expertise to digitise architectural and archaeological monuments and buildings in 3D and is designed to:

• establish a complete pipeline for the production of 3D replicas of archaeological monuments and historic buildings which covers all technical, legal and organisational aspects;
• create 3D models and a range of other materials (images, texts and videos) of a series of internationally important monuments and buildings; and
• contribute content to Europeana using the CARARE aggregation service.

3D-ICONS is one of a suite of projects, funded by the European Commission, to develop Europeana and its contents. It aims to complement the collections which have been made accessible to Europeana through CARARE, Europeana Local, ATHENA and other projects. It will play an important role by involving organisations with recognised expertise in 3D data acquisition and modelling in establishing a full production pipeline. This will cover all aspects of a 3D digitisation project from planning and obtaining permissions, selection of methods and tools, data acquisition, post-processing, publication of content online, and metadata capture to making the content available to Europeana.