‘Sup Re/Cappers. Services rendered today include rendering, as our lead Re/Cap details how Gaussian splatting might democratize 3D capture the way some Bostonians began democratizing colonies by destroying some tea in 1773.
Ah, the age old debate – how to pronounce this mythical means of splatting (“splatting,” by the way, comes from the sound a snowball makes upon being thrown at a brick wall.)
Whadda we look like, linguists? Say it how ya wanna. But, as for the etymology of “Gaussian”?
Guten Tag, Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Widely lionized as the Prince of Mathematics, this wunderkind was blowing peeps away probably before he ditched training wheels. Then at age 15, when his peers were just outgrowing lederhosen and trying to land a date to 1792’s prom, Gauss made his first substantive mathematical contribution by constructing a 17 sided polygon using only a ruler and a compass.
Thanks to his geodetic survey of the Kingdom of Hanover, Gauss invented the heliotrope in 1818, a device that employs mirrors to reflect sunlight over long distances. Pioneering a groundbreaking global magnetic survey, Gauss coordinated an international scientific effort to collect magnetic field data worldwide. By analyzing these measurements, he developed a mathematical model describing the Earth’s magnetic field. That’s just a Tuesday for him; at 70 years old, which is like 206 today, he published a two-volume book on geodesy.
Ten Re/Caps with exclusive dedication couldn’t encompass what Gauss did, thought, and inspired. But how did he earn the namesake of this burgeoning 3D rendering methodology, Gaussian splatting? Welp, look back to his princehood – mathematics.
Dude’s name is a mathematical function, conceptualized by him as normal distributions, AKA bell curves, AKA what splats more or less use to parlay individual points into a continuous, sensible scene. In short, 3D Gaussians form a splat.
In even shorter, Gauss made über good guesses. And now, much later, we make über good stuff.
So of course he reached currency status.
What’s Cappenin’ This Week: A holodeck’s possibly on deck thanks to Gaussian splatting, robots are like a preemptive doctor for construction workers, laser scanning & photogrammetry uncover prehistoric bear tracks, UAVs map the oceanic plastic crisis, and an AEC Error of the Week at a Canadian stadium with more problems than radium.
Quick ‘Caps: The pixel/reality gap & digital twins, FARO pushes metrology forward, a podcast on real-time 3D workflows with Adobe Substance, less can be more in ConTech, NASA awards a metrology support contract, and what Samsung’s first Android XR headset looks like in person.
Last week: Lockheed Martin clears digital twins for takeoff, Mosaic visualizes the industry’s 2025, a geospatial CEO addresses land surveyors and tech expansion, an architect gets solar savvy with BIM, and an AEC Error of the Week that was the unfortunate, harrowing wake up call the garment industry needed.
When the lad whose main geospatial application suite was the basis for Google Earth calls Gaussian splats “the most profound advancement in the field of 3D graphics in more than 30 years,” you know it’s a bigger deal than Anchorman in that robe.
That lad is Brian McClendon, SVP at Pokemon Go-maker Niantic, with a vision gigantic. Because, in the 18 months since the landmark video/paper below was released, Gaussian splatting has garnered more buzz than a Mötley Crüe show sponsored by Jägermeister.
Because it won’t merely improve 3D capture. It will democratize it.
Such potential was the basis of a sprawling exposé and multi-person interview courtesy of The Verge. It all spawned from author Janko Roettgers’ poignant efforts to capture & preserve his ailing grandmother’s home and its trove of memories. It’s an evocative, informative, and technological master stroke of an article. Because, tech is fine when it eases life. But it’s at its finest when it enriches it.
Click below for the expanse of VR hardware, case studies, the Star Trek holodeck, transitioning from polygons, data constraints, Meta’s Hyperscape app, beautiful human stories, and ample tech history.
The cave bear, after an indomitable run in Europe and Asia devouring whatever moved and rummaging through whatever constituted prehistoric trash bins, went extinct around 28,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.
But thanks to reality capture heating up, we just got some maximum fossil data in Spain.
A legion of scanners and photogrammetrists from Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) uncovered 16 cave bear footprints in Honseca Cave, Palencia. It is the first record of Ursichnus europaeus in the Iberian Peninsula. Sci News covers the tracks with a den of quotes, modeling workflows, species history, and why fossils matter (hint – mindless hikers!) below, or bear all with the proper study here.
Plastic is not an issue. It is a petrochemical onion of them, with layers of oceans, waterways, coastal environments, animals, soil, and even our own bloody bloodstream facing dire data emerging on what feels like a weekly basis.
Fortunately, the FIGs are on it. That’s “International Federation of Surveyors,” so get your head out of the kitchen.
And by on it, we mean flying above it.
The federation has created the Mapping the Plastic Working Group (Working Group 4.3), which boasts its own layers of innovation to pummel plastic. Its plastic mapping solution, crafted from deep learning algorithms in conjunction with UAV-captured imagery, aims to stifle plastics’ travels long before ocean entry.
It’s been tested in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it’s thriving in Ghana, it can detect, extract, and classify particles as small as 0.01m2, and it just might hold an answer to one of humanity’s most daunting problems. The ocean-deep GIM International article linked below highlights geospatial data, UAV imagery, U-Net architecture, workflows, and governmental responses among numerous other details.
Since 2008, no other industry has experienced more total deaths than construction. Injuries? About as common as hard hats. And that’s all aside from the hearing impairment, respiratory issues, and a host of other maladies that can define a worker’s latter years.
Gloriously, however, some researchers have realized the best remedy may not be treatment or mitigation – but outright prevention in robotic form. LaTruong Nguyen and Nikolay Atanasov, Electrical and Computer Engineering Professors at University of California San Diego, want the dull, dirty, or dangerous to be a thing of construction workers’ past.
They and their team are developing technologies that prompt robots to navigate dynamic environments, attune to humans, and perform complex tasks. The droids’ detailed grasp of their surroundings, and subsequent rapid adaptation, are driven by advanced 3D reconstruction and mapping.
Grant-funded by a triumvirate of institutes and companies, the innovation is already teasing applications beyond construction. UCSD spills all the deets below, including Korea’s heavy investment, integration tactics, and human-robot collaboration systems.
In the heart of Quebec, Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, affectionately known as “The Big O,” has been living up to its less flattering nickname “The Big Owe” for decades. This once-lauded marvel has endured situations stickier than glue-infused maple syrup for nearly half a century.
The stadium’s retractable roof, designed with more ambition than a politician’s campaign promises, wasn’t even ready for its Olympic debut. Since then, it’s been a comedy of errors that would make even the most seasoned structural engineer facepalm.
In 1991, a tornado decided to play peek-a-boo with the roof, ripping four huge holes faster than you can say “sacrebleu!” Not to be outdone, later that year, 16 support beams snapped, sending a 55-ton concrete beam on an unscheduled trip to the walkway below. No fans or outfielders were harmed. Then in ‘92, the roof thought snow was too mainstream and opted for the “collapsing under snow and ice” look, forcing the cancellation of an auto show.
Fast forward to 2024, and the roof’s got more holes than a block of Swiss cheese – 20,000 to be exact. It’s so bad, the stadium has to close whenever there’s more than 3cm of snow in the forecast. In Canada. In winter. That’s like saying a Fast and the Furious flick can’t be released if a tire is shown three times.
The Quebec government decided to throw $870 million at the problem; because nothing says institutional fiscal responsibility like having to spend nearly ten figures on a roof.
Imagine if we’d unleashed the full arsenal of modern reality capture technologies on the Big O’s roofing woes in droves.
Laser scanning and photogrammetry, combined with regular drone inspections, could have created a highly accurate digital twin of the stadium, allowing engineers to spot potential weak points before they turned into gaping holes. These aerial surveys would have captured every nook and cranny, inspecting those hard-to-reach spots without risking life and limb.
A comprehensive Building Information Model (BIM) integrating all this data would have given stadium managers a real-time view of their trouble-prone topper. They could have simulated snow loads, wind forces, and even the occasional rogue tornado, predicting collapses before the roof decided to play “The Floor is Lava” with Montreal’s winters.
Advanced structural analysis tools, fed by this wealth of data, could have identified stress points and material fatigue long before they became critical. And with the power of digital twins, managers could have tested various repair scenarios virtually, saving millions in trial-and-error fixes.
Robotic inspection systems and drones could have continuously monitored the roof’s condition, alerting maintenance teams to the smallest tear before it joined its 19,999 friends. And when repairs were needed, augmented reality could have guided workers precisely, ensuring every patch was perfect.
With this tech-savvy approach, the Big O might have become the Big “Oh Wow!” instead of the Big “Oh No!” Here’s to hoping the next $870 million comes with a side of 21st-century smarts and a batting average above .100.
[Press release] FARO Technologies Pushes 3D Metrology Forward with New FARO Leap ST
[Article] Why crossing the pixel/reality gap is essential for better digital twins and UI
[Podcast] Materializing the Future: Real-Time 3D Workflows with Adobe Substance
[Article] Technology Overload In Construction: Less Can Be More
[Press release] NASA Awards Logistics, Metrology Support Services Contract
[Article] Here’s what Samsung’s first Android XR headset looks like in person
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