Virtualised urban space
New Scientist: The speedy way to capture a city
“Imagine if the first soldiers to enter an enemy city could map it street by street, recording every window and doorway of the urban battlefield in an accurate 3D model that could instantly be relayed to their comrades at base…The concept is similar to building a virtual reality model, but the process is very different. To produce a VR model, a programmer manually combines distance measurements and 2D pictures to make a 3D model. The new technique, dubbed ‘virtualised reality’ by creator Avideh Zakhor, is automated and much faster. ‘Right now, a detailed urban model can take many months to create,’ says Bruce Deal, vice-president of the Virginia engineering firm SET Associates, which is helping to adapt the technology for the US military. ‘With the new model, we’re talking about an hour or so’ … ‘Speed makes the system very useful to urban war fighters,’ says Deal. Each patrol can record new information about its surroundings, updating the model recorded by the previous patrol. Soldiers can keep up with changes to the cityscape, such as new barricades or destroyed buildings. ‘It’s a vast improvement over current military capability,’ he says.”