Posted 11.05.2009 at 4:45 pm
13 Comments
Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland
Historic Scotland, via The New York Times
In April, a team from Glasgow School of Art will shoot lasers at the heads of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson. And they will do it all in the name of preservation.
The Scottish artists have perfected a system of laser scanning giant monuments, ensuring the digital preservation of even their finest nooks and crannies. They have already completely digitized Scottish landmarks like Rosslyn Church and Stirling Castle. The team is also working in conjunction with CyArk, a non-profit dedicated to laser scanning 500 UNESCO world heritage sites.
The artists use a specialized laser scanner that records 50,000 points per second. They simply sweep the laser across the monument they're looking to digitize, and a receiver records the minute changes in range as points in 3-D space.
An inventor, and co-founder of CyArk, created the process in the wake of the Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Armed with precise measurements of monuments taken with the laser device, engineers could reconstruct an exact replica of any site that suffers destruction similar to the Buddhas.
Of course, these scans do more than just provide a blueprint for future restoration. When combined with high-def 3-D graphics, the library of images created with laser scanning could one create a basis for virtual tours of the world's most impressive monuments.
Additionally, the scanning of regular buildings with this technology would allow the construction of incredibly detailed virtual cities. Placed on the Internet, users could roam these virtual cities or model the effects of new construction projects.
[via The New York Times]
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That is wonderful. Now if they could only finish carving Crazy Horse Monument. Then they could scan that one too.
That is absolutely increadible! I cant wait to see future applications of this technology beyond what is stated in this article.
Draw up a list of the most war / volcano / flood / earthquake endangered monuments and start there.
funny Grey-spear would mention the crazyhorse monument in this considering it's native american indian heritage month. I too would like to see it finished even if they have no idea what crazyhorse actually looked like. (crazyhorse refused photographs of himself supposedly under the belief the camera stole your soul. All known pictures "of crazyhorse" to date have been proven to be of someone else or completely faked.)
I actually work for a small company that specializes in 3D scanning for commercial applications. It is amazing technology, and when matched up with high resolution photography it can really create some intense work. Check out modelsfrommars.com if you would like to check out some of our previous work. Sorry I can't post the link in the comments.
with visualtours, maybe they can integrate this with a hologram so you actually feel like ur walking through, say ... king tutankahmun's chamber in hte great pyramids,
or the taj mahal,
some lava tubes in hawaii, or the grand canyon. ect
or maybe take tours of other planet, like mars, or the moon.
matbye they can make one were it moves and flows like lava or water
is the scanner and the projeckter the same machine?
is the scanner and the projeckter the same machine?
This has excellent applications for 3D gaming. Lets say you need an image of a tree, just scan it and baam! you got it on your pc ready to go. no more hours of painstaking creating unique trees when you can just go scan one.
This has excellent applications for 3D gaming. Lets say you need an image of a tree, just scan it and baam! you got it on your pc ready to go. no more hours of painstaking creating unique trees when you can just go scan one.
stole my idea :D
amazing for gaming, call of duty 49, raid the taj mahal that has been taken over by terrorists in 3-D, AWSOME :P