Technology! The Great Wall of China winds for more than 13,000 miles across the country. That?s a lot of wall. So much wall, in fact, that some sections of it are falling into disrepair simply because the locations are remote and hard to reach.
Technology is providing a solution, though. Intel has begun working with the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation to deploy drones that will create 3D scans of the wall as a way to learn which sections need to be prioritized for restoration. They?ll first buzz over to the Jiankou portion of the wall, which is situated in the steep and rugged hills north of Beijing, and take high resolution 3D photography that will allow conservationists to build a holistic picture of the wall?s current state.
Joakim Emanuelson/Wikimedia
A tower in disrepair in the Jiankou section of the Great Wall.

This isn?t the first project to use digital conservation techniques to capture and preserve the world?s most iconic heritage sites. Organizations like CyArk have long been using high-res scans to build digital recreations of sites of cultural importance. Drones are just another tool in the toolbox.
Via: MIT Tech Review

...