3D scanning technology is more ubiquitous than ever, as is the increased availability of almost every type of sensor. Sensing technology has dramatically decreased in price over the last 10 years, and the ability to capture, record, upload and view different physical data is at an all-time high. Add in the near infinite computing power of the cloud, and we find ourselves in a new age.
Archeologist Dr. Nicholas Reeves, analyzing 3D scan data gathered by Spanish preservation company Factum Arte, may be on the verge of discovering Nefertiti’s tomb (behind Tutankhamen), and organizations like CyArk are on a mission to 3D scan important world heritage sites that are increasingly under threat.
With the destruction of some very important sites in Syria occurring as a result of the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, capturing the data of such sites is more important now than ever before.
While some 3D scanning initiatives are driven by the continued threat of bombing, rarely does a 3D scanning story involve a historical artifact that might be a bomb itself.
Chris Harvey runs a thermal imaging company called Leak Heat in Cruden Bay, north of Aberdeen, Scotland. After sightings of newborn seal pups began to occur with greater frequency in the bay, Harvey decided to take a crew, along with his thermal imaging equipment, down to the bayside to do some environmental scanning.
He wanted to confirm that the number of newborn seal pups in Cruden Bay was increasing enough to warrant a warning to dog walkers. As he notes in his post on Sketchfab’s blog, the reason dog walkers need to be warned is that newborn seals and dogs do not exactly get along.
In order to access the beach, Harvey and his crew had to walk through a golf course. They broke out their T420 thermal imaging camera and began scanning everything in sight. That’s when they picked up an unusual thermal signature.
Harvey decided to take a look and made his way down some dunes and into a tall, grassy inlet. He reached his hand through the grass and discovered a “75 percent buried round lump of metal”, as he wrote in his post. He began to carefully excavate the object, thinking that it was most likely some abandoned old fishing gear.
From his days working offshore in underwater oil and gas, he quickly remembered that unexploded ordnances (UXOs) were not unusual to come across in the North Sea. Harvey stopped digging and, using a DSLR camera, starting shooting. He uploaded his photos to a remote PC for post-processing so they would be ready to model when he returned from the expedition.
Harvey went back and reconstructed the model in about an hour. He took measurements of the model, made an approximation of its weight and realized it was probably a UXO. After noting the location with GPS data, he phoned the police. Before he did that, he uploaded his model to Sketchfab and sent the police a link with the captured 3D data.
Ten minutes after Harvey spoke with police, he received a knock on his door. Two policeman escorted Harvey to the golf course near Cruden Bay—to the coordinate location he sent in. When they arrived, the golf course manager wanted to see the model, which Harvey was able to show him using his mobile phone.
The Royal Navy bomb disposal unit showed up. On their way to the golf course, they were able to use Harvey’s Sketchfab link to check out the 3D model he had made. After they arrived and were up close with the object, they determined it was not a sea mine, but a “bobbin from some redundant trawl gear.”
Though it was ultimately not a bomb, Harvey’s story of a day at the beach is an intriguing example of how the convergence of different 3D technologies enhanced the ability to find the object, capture the object, model the object, upload and share the object for viewing on a mobile device and influence the speedy outcome, the result of which was, fortunately, benign.
Unidentified Metal Debris/Object – Beach Find by LEAKHEAT on Sketchfab
As the democratization of 3D technology continues to expand, technologies like 3D scanning, photogrammetry, thermal imaging and 3D modeling will continue to produce interesting stories of their effects on traditional processes like this one.