Surveying. One of the world’s most ancient disciplines.
China. One of the world’s most ancient countries.
David Attenborough. One of the world’s most anc…joking, we all love Dave.
Just like we all love monumental surveys, like the one imminent in China that’s doubling as today’s lead Re/Cap, Re/Cappers.
So, given the sprawling history of sprawling surveys in China, Re/Cap HQ thought a good old fashioned ranking would be ever fitting, to tee up this audacious mission. Criteria: coolness and hugeness.
COOL HUGE CHINESE SURVEY #3: The Early 18th-Century Jesuits
At the request of the Emperor, Jesuit missionaries conducted an expansive survey in the early 1700s, providing stunning accurate cartographic representations of the empire for its time. The nine-year feat was renowned for its utilization of scientific methods and Western surveying techniques, while the results were published in many an atlas. The grand takeaway was an enriched European understanding of China's geography, complemented by a stronger global cartographic tradition.
COOL HUGE CHINESE SURVEY #2 - The First “Republic”-Wide One
Over two centuries later, Mao Zedong officially anointed his empire the People’s Republic of China; its first complete national land survey had to wait some 35 years.
From ‘84 to ‘96, over 2 million surveyors mapped 2,843 counties, 43,000 towns, and 740,000 villages, embracing aerial photography and satellite imagery. The survey created a sophisticated land classification system with eight primary and forty-six secondary categories, revealing the nation's territorial composition in unprecedented detail. Costing over 1 billion yuan, this undertaking represented an extraordinary effort to systematically document and understand the country's physical landscape.
COOL HUGE CHINESE SURVEY #1 - Freaking EVEREST
One Qing Dynasty survey conducted between 1715 and 1717 is legendary for measuring Mount Qomolangma, AKA Everest. Wielding semi-circle protractors, bronze quadrants, and the like, Chinese surveyors Shengzhu, Churbizanbo and Lanbenzhanba established that wee mountain's height and coordinates, producing findings that would later be immortalized in the Atlas of the Whole Imperial Territory.
So the next time you’re feeling cool for figuring out something’s height with that tape measurer move where the hook stays on your first attempt…remember that people figured out Mount Everest with stuff like this…
The quadrant gave us intel on the planet’s tallest mountain 50 years before America existed. Image credit Science Museum Group
What’s Cappenin’ This Week: China’s Great Wall-sized survey, drone regulations get overcome, LiDAR and 3D stand on guard, predictive maintenance gets Spot on, and an AEC Error of the Week that looked to the stars…only to crash land.
Mini ‘Cappenins: Thermal drones provide koala cuteness overload in Australian wildlife preserve, a UK study on construction injuries, a Ferrari F40 and a 360° camera do what they’re meant to, a talk on BIM data deepening carbon analysis, U.S. construction’s manufacturing boom, and a NASA LiDAR research team gets awarded.
Last week: Tactile mapping assists the vision-impaired, a digital twin assists the Vatican, digital transformation assists solar power, a million women COULD assist construction, and a Barcelonian AEC Error of the Week that’s needed assistance for, like, 150 years.
Earlier this year at Beijing’s DEEP-2024 symposium, the China Geological Survey gave the world quite the preview. And now that we know its finer details, the project itself may be a preview of new eras in survey, energy, resource management, and the comprehension of our own land’s subterranean history.
A SinoProbe I Team conducting a magnetotelluric survey on Qinghai province’s Kunlun Mountain. Image credit Ye Gaofeng/SinoProbe
The geological odyssey known as SinoProbe II will begin its ambitious six-year survey in early 2025. Its aim is to create a detailed 3D map of the Earth’s crust, involving thousands of researchers and a suite of high-tech instruments.
The mission is twofold: satiate China's appetite for natural resources and to tackle fundamental scientific questions, such as the slow-motion collision of India with Eurasia and the rise of the Tibetan Plateau. With plans to drill deeper than ever - up to 15 kilometers - this initiative is impossible to not dig, hence much of the world’s fixation.
And don’t worry; the data will be shared globally between late ‘26-early ‘27, assuming bureaucratic red tape doesn’t turn it into a game of geological hide-and-seek. Science magazine goes deep on it all, linked below.
LiDAR may be years into catapulting numerous industries into the future, but in physical security, it’s actually been relatively stagnant and elementary; largely 2D, and largely relegated to what’s essentially glorified fencing, albeit of a laser-based origin.
Smart LiDAR sensors, well, they’re sending security to get its doctorate. And market projections prove it, with estimates hovering around $6 billion by 2030.
Volumetric detection is en route to mass adoption thanks to LiDAR. Image credit JAGA Systems
The new 3D augmentations are “volumetric detection systems.” These enable detailed, whole-area observation, rather than mere boundary monitoring and its requisite finger crossing that the burglars have a lower IQ than those that messed with the wrong Macaulay Culkin.
Get the full scan below that covers, among other topics, labor intensiveness, regulatory compliance & personal identification quandaries, video management, and 3D surveillance software.
Ah, government regulation, because nothing says innovation like 17 forms in triplicate.
Mostly kidding. In drone world, the FAA is a need. A wondrous achievement. And, one of those cool-to-say-aloud acronyms.
But anytime a barrier for entry is an acronym, it’s liable to scare off an occasional John or Jane who may want to explore a burgeoning technology, especially if it’s loaded with commercial/entrepreneurial applications.
Skydio’s arc of autonomy, which should be more rapid as regulatory relations smooth. Image credit Skydio
But with advances in compliance tools, autonomy, and even slight relaxation of constraints, the dread of starting a drone program is at least approaching misconception-status. In turn, Commercial UAV News penned an advantageous article to help any and all start their drone program simply, and free of legal stress. Enjoy a payload of step-by-step guides, success stories, strategic compliance, early adoption benefits, and reframing barriers as opportunities.
Go nap Lassie, there's a new four-legged friend in town, and this one's got a nose for industrial maintenance.
Spot, the robotic canine from Boston Dynamics, is emerging as man’s AND maintenance’s best friend, with its uncanny ability to sniff out potential equipment hiccups before they become full-blown breakdowns.
MEP, it’s easy as Spot you see. Image credit Boston Dynamics
Anyone familiar with the metallic mutt knows it’s got more sensors than the beast did baseballs in The Sandlot. But three particular abilities from Spot have plant maintenance/operations crews, and many an industrial raving. Get your treat below from Process and Control Today, which highlights reality capture, acoustic leak detection, production system design, training, and what it all means for legacy systems.
Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, when the stars aligned and the cables didn’t. Image credit Ricardo Arduengo via Space.com
Today, we're heeding the collapse of the Arecibo Observatory, a story that proves even the mightiest of alien-hunting dishes can fall victim to the most terrestrial of problems: good old-fashioned cable failure.
Puerto Rico, 2020. For 57 years, the Arecibo Observatory had been a common movie set and Earth's premier celestial eavesdropping device, responsible for everything from discovering pulsars and exoplanets to sending humanity's first "Hey aliens, u up?" message into space. But on December 1st, this 900-ton marvel decided to do its best meteor impression and came crashing down faster than you can say "E.T. phone home."
Thankfully, no injuries were sustained in the catastrophe, which was actually 3+ years in the making, meaning while Arecibo was busy searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, it was missing some pretty big signs right here on Earth.
The culprit was a sneaky little process called "zinc creep." No, it's not a new dance move or a Marvel superhero with a penchant for supplements and striking out with women. It's the gradual deformation of zinc used to anchor the steel cables holding up the telescope's massive receiver. Over time, these cables began slipping out of their sockets.
Cut to 2017, when Hurricane Maria decided to crash the party and subject Arecibo to the highest winds it had experienced since opening in 1963. It's like Mother Nature decided to test if this giant salad bowl could double as a kite.
Post-hurricane inspections concluded that no significant damage had jeopardized the telescope's structural integrity. Spoiler alert: they were wrong.
The real kicker? Even when cables started failing in 2020, engineers failed to consider the degradation mechanisms of the sockets. By the time they realized the gravity of the situation, it was too late. The observatory's fate was sealed faster than the Alien chestburster scene, and the cleanup alone cost tens of millions of dollars.
So, what's the lesson here? When it comes to maintaining massive, irreplaceable scientific instruments, maybe we should pay a little more attention to the nuts and bolts (or in this case, the zinc and cables) holding everything together. And there is no better substitute for such tasks than reality capture. Imagine if we had:
3D laser scanning regularly monitoring those sneaky cables, catching any zinc shenanigans before they became a full-blown cable mutiny.
Drones snapping pics of every nook and cranny our human eyes couldn't reach. "Is that a corroded bolt or just a very shiny space rock? Enhance!"
Photogrammetry creating 3D models so detailed, you could practically count the individual atoms. "Hmm, that support beam looks 0.0001mm off from last week. Better check it out!"
Virtual reality simulations letting engineers play "What If?" without actually dropping a 900-ton receiver platform. "Let's see what happens if we replace these cables with spaghetti... Oh, not good. Definitely not good."
While these tech marvels might not have saved Arecibo from its ultimate fate, they could have given us a fighting chance. Here's hoping the next generation of scientists remember to always, always check their cables, and use the right tools to do so. Because in the grand cosmic dance, sometimes it's not the solar flares you need to watch out for - it's the zinc.
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