For people who have never had to exist under war conditions, it is difficult to understand: your homeland literally seems to sink next to you, everything that was valuable to you disappears. This is what many people in large and small Ukrainian cities have been feeling since the Russian attacks began in February 2022, where they are still confronted with bombs, missiles and drones almost every day. A smartphone app is intended to help preserve cultural assets, but also many other things in the country, at least digitally, in case they are destroyed in attacks.
Advertisement
LiDAR from the iPhone 12 Pro
Specifically, the Backup Ukraine project aims to digitally create as many and as accurate 3D models of buildings, objects or monuments as possible. This used to be very difficult technically and was only possible with expensive, good quality hardware. Now – thanks to the built-in LiDAR sensor (Light Detection and Ranging) – iPhone Pro models from the 12 Pro onwards can do it. “I’ve been working on 3D scanning with traditional hardware for years, and what you can do with these LiDAR devices is literally 100 times faster than what was possible before,” said Chris Heinrich, head of Polycam, the Backup Ukraine company together with UNESCO and Blue Shield, an organization for the preservation of cultural assets, to present the technology.
Anyone who is on site and wants to take part can register as a volunteer using a form; the Polycam app itself is available in the App Store. Instructions including videos show how to scan in English. You can read an object both in photo mode – in which a 3D image is created from individual images – and (faster and for larger structures) in LiDAR mode. There is also a room mode that allows you to capture entire buildings including floor plans.
Recommended editorial content
With your consent, an external YouTube video (Google Ireland Limited) will be loaded here.
Always load YouTube video Load YouTube video now
Anyone can scan
Scanning a statue, for example, is not difficult: you move slowly around the object to digitize it from all sides (including from above and below). To capture finer details, get closer. If you want to capture entire buildings, you should use an iPhone Pro model 12 or higher. Polycam saves location data and then transfers the data to a database. It may then be possible to use the material later to help with reconstruction because the objects and buildings are available in standard 3D formats.
Polycam otherwise offers various commercial apps for 3D scanning using smartphones, now also for selected Android devices. The company also markets a 360-degree photography app and offers a marketplace for 3D models created with its software. “With Backup Ukraine, anyone can become an archivist. You can scan buildings and monuments as complete 3D models using just your smartphone. And then save them in an open, secure online archive – where no bombs can reach,” writes Polycam his project.
(bsc)
To home page