AUTODESK:
ReCap × African Fossils
Creative Direction
User Interface
Interaction
Enterprise Cross-Marketing
This interactive timeline, powered by Autodesk's ReCap® Pro, curates a Cloud–generated database of 3D archeological specimens dating back 20 million years. This partnership with Autodesk, Louise Leaky, and her Stony Brooks foundation showcases ReCap's reality capture in a cross-marketing effort that spot-lit both endeavors.
ReCap® × AFRICAN FOSSILS
DISCOVERY
I worked with Autodesk on the launch of ReCap® Pro: 3D scanning and reality capture software that allows users to create 3D models from laser scans or photographs.
ReCap® can create high-quality 3D models of real-world objects and environments, allowing users to share point clouds and meshes with other teams for everything from infrastructure design, construction verification, drone captures, and game asset creation.
To market the tool, Autodesk partnered with renowned archeologist, Louise Leakey, who used the software to image real artifacts from her dig sites, and archive them as 3D specimens on the cloud. An interactive timeline seemed like the perfect activation to showcase both the software and Louise's critical work.
THE FUTURE OF ARCHEOLOGY
Beyond commercial applications, LiDAR topography is an incredibly valuable tool for archaeologists. ReCap® Pro works hand-in-glove with LiDAR: together, they can reveal hidden features by penetrating vegetation, record the ground surface, and reveal previously undetectable archaeological features.
For example, LiDAR has helped Stony Brooks uncover hidden buildings and artifacts in the rainforests of Mesoamerica. Beyond individual, highly detailed specimens, ReCap® can produce highly accurate three-dimensional models of land surfaces, including the shapes and orientations of buildings, rapidly assessing large areas for archaeological potential, an mapping entire sites in a single afternoon. With the help of LiDAR and ReCap® modeling, we might be able to accomplish hundreds of years of archeological work in a matter of months.
While ReCap is mainly an industrial tool, testing it in the field with Louise Leaky not only helped perfect the software, but generated more interest in the technology, garnered funding, updates, and a final release that has far-reaching industrial and social and implications.
