Archinect - News

Move over, Google Earth: Swiss tech startup uses enhanced aerial photography to create better 3D models of cities for urban planners

2022-12-19T17:06:00-05:00

A new approach uses aerial imaging to generate 3D models of cities and regions with advanced precision, enabling urban planners to incorporate full-scale designs of all types of architectural and urban structures.

Tech start-up Uzufly operates out of the Le Garage space located inside the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)’s expanding Innovation Park. "The company's 3D models incorporate a wide range of urban-planning data and can accommodate any type of architectural design at full scale," reports Tech Xplore's Sandy Evangelista.

Previously on Archinect: Scientists are using deep learning data to map structure damage from wildfires

"We basically use the same technology as Google Earth — that is, aerial photography," Uzufly co-founder Théo Benazzi explains. "But while Google uses airplanes to take huge numbers of pictures at high altitudes, we use drones that have smaller cameras and capture images much closer to the ground. That's why we can generate 3D models at the level of a neighborhood or an entire city."

The team is currently working with the EPFL's Arts of Sciences Laboratory (LAPIS) and the Swiss National Science Foundation to produce a digital twin of an unnamed Egyptian...

Interactive map illustrates the impact of coronavirus on global pollution

2020-03-25T17:49:00-04:00

In an effort to track the impacts, Earther assembled an interactive map to explore the changes in air pollution not just in the U.S. but globally. The map runs on Google Earth Engine and uses data collected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite, which circles the Earth capturing various types of data. It includes four snapshots from December 2019 through March 20, 2020. The Sentinel satellite data shows nitrogen dioxide, which is a handy proxy for human activity.

Brian Kahn and Dhruv Mehrotra of Earther highlight a recently launched pollution visualizer their team has assembled that highlights the stark changes in human activity across the world in the wake of COVID-19-imposed economic and social disruptions.

The authors interview Barbara Dix, an atmospheric researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder who explains, “We are now witnessing a global experiment where one emission source is rapidly turned down (NOx), while other sources are still up or will decrease more slowly. A lot of atmospheric science will come out of this.”

The interactive map, which uses satellite data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite and runs on the Google Earth Engine, can be accessed here.

Photographer documents where human-imposed grid must bend to Earth

2018-01-04T13:28:00-05:00

Photographer Gerco de Ruijter is widely known for his work focusing on grids and other signs of human-imposed geometry on the landscape. His latest work explores instances in the North American landscape where the Jeffersonian road grid is forced to go awry due to the curvature of the Earth. His film Grid Corrections was made digging through Google Earth imagery of the Thomas Jefferson Grid, a grid built of exact square mile increments that must bend every 24 miles.

Photo: still from “Grid Corrections” by Gerco de Ruijter, courtesy of the Ulrich Museum of Art.

Check out a one minute clip of his film documenting these strange instances of T-intersections and zigzagging turns, where the human grid is forced to account for its natural environment. Read more about the project on Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG.

Watch the world change with Google's new Timelapse tool

2016-12-08T12:27:00-05:00

A lot has changed since 1984. That much is made clear with Google’s fun new toy, an interactive timelapse of Google Earth that stretches back 32 years. Constructed with 33 cloud-free annual mosaics, the tool was made interactive by Carnegie Mellon University CREATE Lab’s Time Machine library.

You can pan around the map and see just about anywhere on the planet. Watch as cities get new developments, expand outwards, or gain green patches. Farming areas are particularly interesting. From above, crop rotation looks like crazy pixel art. Other regions prove more depressing. You can see with vivid clarity the melting of glaciers and mass deforestation.

Play around with the map here: