3D models to explore the future of urban digitization

The ScanVan camera © DHLAB / EPFL A multidisciplinary Swiss team explored the future of urban digitization in its theoretical, technical, and legal dimensions by modeling the city of Sion with an innovative ScanVan. ScanVan, a four-year project to develop new technology to digitize cities, reached its culmination in March 2021. This was a tripartite Swiss collaboration between researchers at the EPFL Digital Humanities Laboratory , the HES-SO Valais/Wallis Institute of Systems Engineering , and the University of Zurich's Center for Information Technology, Society, and Law , with funding from the SNSF's Big Data National Research Program. Together the team carried the project from theoretical conception, through practical implementation, to exploration of future social and commercial applications. ScanVan helps to advance an important new frontier in information and communication technology: the production of 3D urban models. Most existing scanning systems either use expansive laser-based systems or photogrammetric approaches based on standard photographic cameras which are not error-proof and therefore require several rounds of scanning. The ScanVan team developed an omni-directional spherical acquisition system associated with a dedicated algorithm that guaranties high scanning and photogrammetric computing efficiency.