‘Sup Re/Cappers!Make your way to hair, makeup, and wardrobe because we’re getting cinematic today, exploring photogrammetric coverage of a famed general & emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix.
We’ll get there in a minute, but essentially, reality capture straight up won an Oscar – yet it wasn’t even the technologies’ first!
In 2001, an Academy Scientific and Technical Achievement Award was bestowed on Kim Libreri, Dan Piponi, and George Borshukov for “the development of a system for image-based rendering allowing choreographed camera movements through computer graphic reconstructed sets.”
That’s the verbose way to say they made The Matrix and Mission: Impossible series astonishing to behold. The films and their sequels weren’t just blockbusters. They were pioneers, paving the way for the photogrammetric VFX and texture mapping we know today. Read how below.
What’s Cappenin’ This Week: U.S. Congress targets Chinese drones, reality capture goes Hollywood, St. Peter’s Basilica gets preserved, to XR is to go far in AEC, and a trip to South Korea for one of the most catastrophic structural failures in modern history for an AEC Error of the Week.
Last week on Red Rocks Amphitheater droning on more than a ten-minute mumble rap song, beetle infestations getting predicted, four companies chit chatting on the survey and the map, a nature nonprofit releasing an geospatial report, and a soaking wet AEC Error of the Week.
The Countering CCP Drones Act has passed the U.S. House of Representatives, spelling danger for prominent Chinese manufacturer DJI.
But all hope is not lost.
There are about as many moving parts to this saga than people in China, and the bill is less likely to pass the Senate and emergency land on President Biden’s desk. It’s a deeply contentious topic, so Pilot Institute’s Vic Moss and Greg Reverdiau felt compelled to talk legislation, DJI, U.S. manufacturing, lobbyists, misinformation, and much more in an expansive 30-minute breakdown.
On the whole, 2023’s Napoleon did not garner the same praise as director Ridley Scott’s signature flicks (Alien, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Blade Runner).
But its visual effects sure did.
They earned the biopic an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, thanks to the slick, 1,000,000-image based reality capture of Visualskies. It actually prompted confusion, as viewers weren’t sure when and where visual effects were even used. Tip thine cap to LiDAR and photogrammetry, which have proven far more convincing than average CGI. Befores & Afters has the full story available as an excerpt of their magazine issue, packed with keen insight from Duncan Lees, Visualskies’ Director of LiDAR.
The Fabric of Saint Peter is not a cassock collection, oh no. It’s the institution formed by Pope Julius II in 1506 to reconstruct and preserve St. Peter’s Basilica.
And in doing so, the 500-year-old body just became a beacon of modernity to boot.
In anticipation of 2025’s Jubilee celebrations, The Fabric sought two things: pinpoint architectural detail, and continuous structural monitoring. Engineering firm Italferr was up to the task, and was commissioned to create a digital twin of the basilica. GIM International details the build-up & context, the meticulous process, and what it means going forward.
We humans can’t even collaborate on who goes first at the 4-way stop. So it goes without saying that for AEC firms, optimal all-phase collaboration & coordination are a 4-minute mile.
Well, XR in the 2020s may be Nike in the 70s.
And Autodesk is on it, with their Workshop XR platform empowering immersive workspaces, all-access pristine 3D models, and deft problem solving. Whether you’re game for that or not, their treatise on AEC XR linked below is glorious, spanning XR history, use cases, MEP, shared 3D interaction, and more, including presentations from AU 2023.
Tragedies have magnitudes.
Devastating hurricanes will touch land. Brakes will just give out. Grizzlies will be too hungry when we’re too close.
But senseless, wholly preventable tragedy is the most haunting. It’s why people end up in prison, and survivors write books: two consequences of a culminating horror in South Korea.
On June 29, 1995, the city of Seoul witnessed one of the deadliest structural failures in modern history when the Sampoong Department Store collapsed, leaving hundreds deceased or injured.
The catastrophe stemmed from a series of critical design changes and construction errors, chief among them:
On the day of the collapse, cracks finally gave way. The entire south wing of the building pancaked, igniting what would be a multi-decade reverberation.
Reality capture technologies, had they been available and implemented, could have played a crucial role in preventing this tragedy – but also, other instances of frighteningly inept engineering:
Metrology could have verified critical structural elements met design specifications. LiDAR and photogrammetry could have detected early signs of failure and paved a way for 3D models to spot discrepancies between design and actual build. BIM integrated with reality capture data could have simulated structural impacts of design changes; digital twin technology could have provided real-time monitoring of the building’s structural health.
The Sampoong Department Store collapse serves as a stark reminder of the importance of rigorous structural design, proper construction practices, and ongoing monitoring.
It also exemplifies how reality capture is a distinct kind of safety net.
See, were the Sampoong stakeholders consciously…homicidal? Who can truly know? However, we do know they were incorrigibly lazy, a trait shared by stakeholders around the globe. The Sampoong prisoners deserve their time, but for each one of them, there are probably 1,000 stakeholders whose negligence could have allowed for a similar catastrophe.
So just remember. Reality capture doesn’t just keep our built world in check. It does the same for our all-too-common human follies.
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