Rio de Janeiro’s 38-meter-tall “Christ the Redeemer” is one of the most iconic statues in the world, but, up until now, the famous figure has yet to be fully captured as an accurate replica. Without the proper technology when the statue was constructed in the 1920’s and due its location atop Corcovado Mountain, 3D scanning of the Redeemer was previously not possible. If you caught Andrew Wheeler’s piece on Chris Anderson, recently, you’ll know that hurdles, such as difficult to reach mountaintops, are now being overcome through the use of 3D scanning drones.
To capture an accurate replica of the figure, the NEXT Lab at PUC University of Rio de Janeiro teamed up with 3D scanning firm Pix4D and drone manufacturer Aeryon to bring Christ the Redeemer to the digital world. One Aeryon drone, 19 ten-minute flights, and 2,090 individual images later and the team was able to create a 3D model of the statue on Corcovado Mountain made up of 2.5 million triangles and a 134.4 million point cloud points.
You can watch the video of the model’s capture below and you can explore Christ to your delight via the Sketchfab model above. Christ! How the digital and physical worlds are beginning to collide! Update: The 3D scan can now be downloaded on Sketchfab here.
