Explorations into the use of 3D scanning for rapid capture and visualisation of public-urban spaces.
These point-clouds and represent the use of multitple 3D scanning softwares and workflows: CloudCompare, Metashape, RealityCapture, Polycam, Scaniverse, COLMAP, Meshroom, Unreal Engine, SiteScape - and others.
3D scanning has typically been the purview of surveyors for the past 30-50 years. Where previously surveyors would take point-to-point measurements, the advancement of laser technology over the past decade has allowed for quicker and highly accurate distances to be obtained, with further advancement allowing the capture of thousands, or millions, of these measurements in minutes, using a statically positioned laser. The current downside being these scans require expensive and complicated tech.
However, the improvement of photogrammetry and the introduction of low-fidelity LiDAR technology into mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone range, has enabled enthusiastics to take advantage of these 3D representations.
These point-clouds represent an exploration into low-fidelity "fuzzy" 3D-scanned spaces, that maintain a spatial richness - a richness that traditional 3D representation, such as 2D renders, photographs or drawings, and even newer techniques, such as animations, virtual reality walkthroughs, cannot provide.
This richness is a quality captured through an almost uncanny-valley-esque phenomenon - the 3D-scanning techniques ability to capture an eerily accurate approximation of a spaces appeals to our natural ability to comprehend, view and spatialise the world around us - this is especially true when paired with colourised points taken from the surroundings themselves, often capturing real-life lighting - something we are also acutely attuned too.
There is also the opportunity to interrogate three-dimensional data that cannot be conducted on 2D information, or even on reconstructed 3D data. Rapid capture allows for rapid insights such as the ability to assess planarity, volumes, surface variation - as well as answer less technical questions regarding visibility, sight-lines, occlusions.
Extracted pavement pattern depicted in above 3D-model.