Don a smile Re/Cappers, our lead story is off to the region that dominates global happiness reports like Beyoncé dominates awards shows. We’re talkin’ Sweden, and a Gaussian splatting initiative from a preeminent automotive manufacturer.
But if you thought this was Volvo’s first innovation rodeo, you’d be as wrong as thinking the Danes were downers and the Finns fussers.
Because even though “digital transformation” still eludes many an organization, the Swedish car connoisseurs were onto it nearly a decade ago.
There’s this EU-backed ENTOC thing in 2016 (Engineering Tool Chain for Efficient and Iterative Development of Smart Factories), to which Volvo was magnetically drawn. It got alliance-happy, and began the ambitious/maybe-crazy-for-the-time journey of creating a virtual twin of their factory in Umeå, Sweden. The project’s chief pursuits were dynamic virtual engineering of production systems, real-time data feed for factory preparation and simulation, and operational monitoring utilizing partnerships.
The scanning and CAD work on the production cells were grueling and tedious, given the size and intricacy of the factory. But that only heightened the satisfaction of experiencing a true digital replica, and the unending testing that could occur without disrupting production.
As the project progressed, the Umeå factory became a hub of innovation, drawing industry-wide attention. And within their mission, said innovation got contagious. A pilot plant expansion was added to the Umeå factory. Robots joined the party. Twin support began for factories in Brazil, Thailand, the U.S., and Russia. Volvo Construction Equipment got twinning. Volvo Trucks North America upgraded their aerodynamics and sustainability through reality capture, simulation, and computational fluid dynamics.
And today, with their unrelenting allergy to complacency, Volvo is leveraging new tech, with different endgames: Gaussian splatting, virtual worlds, and safety, respectively.
‘Mys’ (mees) is a Swedish word that roughly translates to coziness, and is a pillar of the culture and way of life (you may have heard the Danish variant, “hygge”).
…Seems Volvo has also achieved mys with staying ahead of the curve.
What’s Cappenin’ This Week
Gotta admit, Volvo does walk the walk when it comes to generational safety.
Company engineer Nils Bohlin invented the modern three-point seat belt in 1959. Instead of keeping the patent exclusive, Volvo made it free to use for other manufacturers. A million saved lives later, it’s often cited as the epitome of corporate social responsibility.
And today, the Swedish car crafter has enacted its next safety chapter, through a suite of jaw-dropping innovation.
AHHHH what’s in the box? Things that definitely won’t be hit thanks to tech, that’s what. Image credit Volvo cars via Ars Technica
It traces back to the 1970s, when Volvo began visiting crash sites to meticulously record data. Now, with intel from tens of thousands of incidents, Gaussian splatting, AI and virtual world-building & simulation, safety is a sprawling sandbox developers can practically play in.
Volvo is able to “take one point, one traffic scenario, and explode it into thousands or tens of thousands of scenarios from this real-world data," according to Erik Coelingh, VP of Product at Zenseact, an Advanced Driver Assistance Systems developer owned by Volvo.
Linked below is Arc Technica’s trunk full of leadership quotes within coverage of SDVs (software-defined vehicles), supply chains, closed-loop simulations, end-to-end algorithms, a new “Lidar AS” feature, and building NeRFs in 4D and in space time.
A tale of two cities?
Nuh-uh, at least not In Northwestern Slovenia’s Lake Bled, where it’s two tales of one city.
On one hand, Lake Bled’s natural and cultural history is hallowed, with dozens of protected lakes and heritage-listed historic sites surrounding it. On the other hand, it’s now ground zero for one of the most modern and imaginative architectural endeavors of our time, delivered by an equally creative firm - Studio Tim Fu, out of London.
Lake Bled Estate in Slovenia. The penalty for not picking up after your dog here might be three life sentences. Image credit Studio Tim Fu
While Fu’s commission puts AI front and center, it’s steeped in deeply human values and long-standing Slovenian typologies. In developing the Lake Bled Estate, STF employed AI to integrate local Slovenian architectural motifs into contemporary villa designs. The AI analyzed traditional elements, and facilitated their reinterpretation into modern features like vertical atriums.
The eponymous CEO and "architectural futurist” was snagged by Forbes for an elaborate interview on visions for AEC & AI, blending human creativity with machine intelligence, early days at Zaha Hadid Architects, diffusion AI models, Slovenian splendor, strict building codes, daylighting and room efficiency, and the current fragmentation in architecture Oh, and treat yourself to the STF Labs.
Yeah, so, a beauty conglomerate spoke at NVIDIA GTC 2025.
London-based monolith Unilever operates in 190 countries, owning a number of brands over 2X that! That’s old news. The new news - an even more riveting form of doubling - came courtesy of ‘Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Esi Eggleston Bracey.
Whole-body deo going whole-body duo in Unilever land. Image credit Unilever
Bracey regaled the GTC crowd with tales of leveraging NVIDIA Omniverse to create real-time, pixel perfect product twins.
The numbers are staggering, pulled from TRESemmé Thailand as it was the first Unilever company to initiate said twinning: 87% reduction in content creation costs, content generated twice as fast, and a 5% increase in purchase intent.
Pull the lever on Unilever’s press release below for an unpacking on one of the more inventive GTC case studies: product shoots, growing demand for content, personalizing marketing, product desirability, Open Universal Scene Description, and the next wave of household brands queued up to replicate the magic.
Mise en place is an OG French culinary discipline (and unsung lifehack). Meaning “putting in place”, it speaks to the value of having all ingredients and cookware prepared and organized, prior to cooking.
Little did that prophet know he or she also created a metaphor for scanning-enabled virtual assembly, smart manufacturing, and digital twin optimization!
Precise scanning data enables manufacturers to virtually assemble, and give fit a test drive. Image credit Zeiss Industrial Quality Solutions
Laser and structured light scanning have redefined part measurement, offering bonkers speed and accuracy, and a harmonious route to a digital twin. Advanced Manufacturing combed through it in a masterful wormhole of a bulletin, taking us back centuries for integral inventions, and returning us to today’s manifestations of them. The piece also benefits from first-hand analysis and wisdom from two authorities at Hexagon, and Zeiss Industrial Quality Solutions.
Get the nitty gritty below on car and tractor case studies, laser vs. structured light, CMM shortcomings, medical implant devices, 3D printing for Formula One, digital twin definition drama, digital threads, and 60s physicist Theodore Maiman’s importance.
East London’s Ronan Point Collapse of 1968. Image credit Logic4Training
Some failures announce themselves with time - cracks widening, lean increasing, warning signs accumulating. Others arrive in an instant, exposing the fragility we did not see - intentional or not.
In the early hours of May 16, 1968, a single spark in an East London high-rise revealed a terrifying truth: Ronan Point was never truly standing, despite the high-rise fervor of the time.
It was merely waiting to fall.
Ivy Hodge, a resident of the 18th floor, struck a match to light her gas stove. In that moment, a hidden flaw - the kind that lives in shortcuts and unchecked assumptions - came to life. A gas leak, a small explosion, and then, impossibly, an entire corner of the 22-story tower began to peel away like wet paper. The floors above collapsed onto the void below, dragging the structure down in a cruel cascade of failure. By sunrise, four lives were lost, 17 people were injured, and the illusion of stability had crumbled along with the building.
The collapse exposed a chain of negligence disguised as innovation:
A brittle design: No redundancy, no backup, and plenty of offsite prefabrication misjudgment. If one piece failed, there was nothing to stop the dominoes.
Corners cut: Investigators found joints stuffed with crumpled newspaper(!) instead of concrete. Walls sat on leveling bolts, not the ideal continuous mortar bed. Rainwater had an open door to seep into the joints.
A perilous gamble: The structure barely met the standards of the day—standards that, in hindsight, were an invitation to disaster.
It all culminated in a disaster that would catalyze its own demolition, just 18 years after opening.
If Ronan Point was a house of cards disguised as concrete, reality capture and related tech could have seen through the illusion before lives were lost.
Laser scanning, photogrammetry, and 3D models could have exposed gaps in panel joints, misaligned load-bearing elements, and other structural integrity red flags. And when is a drone happier than in the company of a high-rise? Today, as-built vs. as-designed analysis ensures that construction matches engineering intent, preventing these hidden weaknesses from being built into reality.
A fully integrated BIM model would have revealed the building’s lack of redundancy, its weak panel connections, and its inability to withstand localized failures. Simulating real-world forces within BIM would have predicted the progressive collapse scenario, compelling changes before concrete was ever poured.
IoT sensors could have sensed trouble, monitoring structural shifts, analyzing vibrational stress, and potentially detecting gas leaks in real time. Instead of waiting for failure, engineers would have seen the warning signs long before disaster struck. Digital twins could have stress-tested Ronan Point’s design, simulating explosions, structural weaknesses, and load distribution failures, proving the design’s fatal flaws on a screen rather than in the real world.
Ronan Point forced the industry to reckon with itself, leading to new regulations that demanded buildings be designed to survive local failures without bringing the entire structure down.
But the lesson is not just historical. The temptation to cut corners, to do just enough, is as present today as it was in 1968. Reality capture, thorough inspections, and rigorous design reviews exist to counter that temptation - to catch the unseen, to reinforce the fragile, to ensure that what stands today does not fall tomorrow.
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