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Laser-Scanning U.S. Landmarks

Posted by timothy on from the just-in-case dept.

MeanMF writes "The New York Daily News reports in this article that the National Park Service is creating detailed 3-D maps of national monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore using high-resolution laser scanners. Their goal is to create highly-accurate blueprints that can be used to reconstruct the monuments if they are damaged by a terrorist attack or other means." The same story is also available at Yahoo!.

9 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by IIRCAFAIKIANAL · · Score: 5, Funny
    So a team from Texas Tech University was dispatched to document the tone of her copper skin, the undulations of her flowing gown, the muscles in her outstretched arm, the curve of her lips and the height, width and depth of her wide-open eyes.


    Lady Liberty is sexy sexy sexy! They forgot to mention her heaving bosom though.
    --
    Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
  2. That's what I call a backup! by FurryFeet · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure gives a new meaning to the phrase "disaster recovery", don't it? Altough, if restoring from tape is a bitch, now imagine this one...

  3. Important by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is very important. If our monuments are destroyed, we have to build them again exactly as they were before. That's because the key thing about monuments is not what they represent, but their particular physical specifications. By rebuilding exactly as before, we send a message to the terrorists that we keep very good records, and aren't afraid to use them.

    Contrast this to the way our enemies behave. When we bomb their command centers, rather than rebuilding them exactly as they were before, they rebuild them to be more bomb proof. This shows how little respect for their own history they have.

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  4. Michael Jackson .. by Macka · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..had the same thing done for his face last month; just in case he accidentally stepped out into a strong wind!

    Macka

  5. Re:Replace them? by Peterus7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, one things for certain, the French sure aren't gonna build us another Statue of Liberty, with the way we've been acting lately.

  6. Re:This I gotta see.. by outsider007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's one thing to rebuild the Statue of Liberty, I can see how that might be accomplished (albeit at quite a cost).

    Yeah right. they still haven't gotten around to fixing that crack in the liberty bell.

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    If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
  7. Reverse-engineering by Trogre · · Score: 5, Funny

    So they're reverse-engineering architectural features for the purpose of making replacement copies. I wonder if this falls under the jurisdiction of the DMCA?

    Hopefully it would fall under 'fair use' as it is (reportedly) for backup purposes.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  8. Re:Usable by free flight simulators? by BCoates · · Score: 5, Funny

    Then terrorists may be able to use it to their advantage to find weakspots in (for eg) Mount Rushmore. I imagine they will be able to find flaws in rushmore that could be exploited by high explosives.

    Well, There's this exhaust port, but it's at the end of this narrow canyon and only like two meters wide...

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    Benjamin Coates

  9. Re:curious.... by morgajel · · Score: 5, Funny

    so far every post I've read is complaining about "taxpayers money at work" or "why bother?"...you're looking at it the wrong way-

    think of the uses of these maps!
    ut2003, doom3, quake 10, counterstrike:anti-terrorist unit, etc... what ever.

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