The Great Flight Cage is part of the aviary at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (more commonly known as the National Zoo), which is one of the oldest zoos in the US. (Source: National Park Service, Historic American Buildings Survey)
That's a good question, Chuck. I don't think officially this is a project that is open to anyone who wants to access the point clouds to recreate historical buildings and sites. I think this is just Autodesk working with this historical entity and other partners to do so. That said, there is Autodesk point cloud technology accessible to mainstream folks called Project Photofly. I believe it's currently still an Autodesk Labs project, but downloadable for beta. That is the same technology being used on this project.
Beth, I agreed. History and historical things are nation’s assets. So it’s important to preserve and keep it for the coming generations. I hope the 3D vision can help for a better realistic vision and a walk through experience.
Beth, are we talking about the ability for anyone to gain access to these 3D point clouds and then being able to build models with their own 3D printers?
It is really cool. And using technology like point clouds, 3D modeling software, and 3D printers to recreate history or to pull together historical documents, items, artifacts in a compelling way so it really tells the story is only going to make the past far more accessible to future audiences.
Beth, this is really good news. I recently happened upon a repository of source documents from the computer industry going back to the 1940s. It is really revealing and interesting to see what people were doing and thinking then in a filed that is so important. The same is true of the things we build. The last century or so has seen some of the most fantastic developments in this area and they should be preserved. We often do not pay much attention to recent history.
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