License and scan registration Re/Cappers, today’s got two ‘Caps on law enforcement, two continents, and one goal - better Protecting & Serving via scanning, robotics, VR, digital twins, the works!
The two PDs’ ideations are novel. The hardware & software are patently modern. But if you think law enforcement en masse is new to reality capture, you can turn yourself in for failure to have a clue!
Much of the origin lies in crime scenes. And most of that lies in 2014, the holy grail of years for #CaptureCoppin’. It started with Roswell, New Mexico - yes, that Roswell (E.T. model home). The police department made the otherworldly leap to be among the first agencies to deploy this “laser scanner” thingamajig. While the town may be famous for alleged extraterrestrials, this time, the technology was decidedly terrestrial: nearly $86k worth (after a capital outlay program) of Faro engineering that could dissect crime scenes with millimeter precision. This Focus3D was equipped with a touchscreen, GPS, and a height sensor, linking to computers by way of a WLan connection.
The new toy wasn't born of sudden inspiration, but years of wishful thinking; the perpetual dream of capturing what happened, where, how, and in what spatial relationship every piece of evidence existed. When the scanner finally arrived, it immediately validated itself. After a violent incident, investigators found themselves able to put the eventual jury “inside the scene,” as aptly described by public liaison Sabrina Morales. Suddenly, judges and jurors weren't squinting at flat photographs trying to ascertain spatial relationships; they were conducting virtual walkthroughs with the kind of clarity that Detective Scott Stevenson predicted would obviate traditional crime scene photography.
Roswell's investment proved timely that same year, when tragedy unfolded at Fort Hood, Texas. The mass shooting's sprawling geography & multiple buildings presented exactly the kind of complex spatial challenge that traditional methods handle poorly. Army forensic teams turned to 3D scanning not out of technological enthusiasm but practical necessity, forging digital reconstructions that allowed investigators to revisit the scene with unequaled patience and precision.
The subsequent Navy Yard shooting in Washington, D.C., further demonstrated how modern mass-casualty events often exceed the capabilities of conventional documentation. These incidents sprawl across multiple locations, creating investigative challenges that demand innovation.
Budgetary realities did slap the ‘cuffs on rapid growth. Yet even this selective deployment marked a clear shift toward preserving physical spaces as permanently navigable digital environments. And the implications extended beyond evidence collection; jurors, historically confined to flat photographs and witness testimony, suddenly gained a refined spatial understanding. Crime scenes could now be explored in a way that physical spaces, with their penchant for contamination and alteration, rarely permit.
What began as one department's expensive bet on futuristic evidence collection became the foundation for a more rigorous approach to justice, wherein the physical world's impermanence no longer constrains the pursuit of truth.
And as we’ll soon cover, this rigorous approach now can mean outright prevention. What an alien thought.
What’s Cappenin’ This Week
Quick ‘Caps
Last Week: From paralysis to shipwreck survey & imaging, coastal conservation, drones for famed ‘mud volcanoes’, the BIM data paradox. Plus a Boston AEC Error of the Week in the 70s, with about 70 shortcuts taken.
The preferred treat for this mobile mutt? A repeat offender!
Nottinghamshire Police have become the first in the UK to unleash not a German shepherd, but a LiDAR-toting, AI-eyed robot dog onto the streets - or at least, into the kinds of controlled trials that make headlines.
Built by 22-year-old robotics engineer Nathan Wallace, Sgt. Sparky over here is fitted with a forward-looking sensor suite that includes LiDAR for mapping its environment, night vision, and an AI discernment system that can spot the difference between, oh, a mobile phone and a machete. It can climb stairs, move silently, and carry a loudspeaker so that officers can instruct suspects. Imagine being told to “come out with your hands up” by something that looks like Boston Dynamics’ Spot only with a badge and a spot of tea!
“You think a tennis ball works on me, punk?” Image credit BBC
The rationale for this experiment is straightforward: send a robot into situations laden with risk; Armed standoffs, hostage crises, and even hazmat scenarios are all on the menu. But given the £24,000/unit price tag, evaluation during the three-month trial will be understandably meticulous. If successful, the #Pedigreepolice could roll out across other UK forces next year.
The implications are big enough that BBC picked up coverage, offering diverse photos & video, what it can do that drones can’t, and analysis on 2021’s NYC ‘botdog experiment.
Who would have thought that the last state to establish a proper police force would become the first to embrace what can only be described as "Grand Theft Auto: Government Edition"?
As recently dispatched on Esri’s blog, Hawaii's Department of Law Enforcement is now pioneering the use of virtual reality via GIS tech, to build a geospatial digital twin.
Replaying evacuation flows via temporal analysis. Image credit Esri
The mastermind behind the security & situational awareness boon is Brandon Asuka, whose eureka moment came not from years of law enforcement training, but from…video games. "Playing video games has helped me see what can happen in reality," Asuka said. Finally, someone who can put "Level 99 Sorceress" on their police résumé.
One reality, is that Hawaii's islands-abound geography creates daunting training challenges. With officers spread across four of the eight main islands and only 350 sworn personnel covering the whole state, traditional training methods are costly and inefficient. So why fly officers between islands for training when you can have them meet in cyberspace?
The crown jewel is a seamless digital twin of Hawaii's State Capitol, created through drone imaging. Using VR headsets, law enforcement officials can stroll the building virtually, while the system integrates live camera feeds, IoT sensors, and real-time data streams.
Stake out the bountiful Esri blog below, exploring emergency response, workflows, gamification, the police recruitment crisis, and what awaits Waikiki.
We all know “Be All You Can Be.” Certified banger.
But maybe now, it needs an addendum; “Make What You Can Fly”. Because the U.S. Army has launched the Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course (UALC) at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Because apparently, nothing says "modern warfare" like soldiers hunched over CAD software, meticulously adjusting their models before exporting STLs and pondering the aerodynamic quirks of their next battlefield drone.
SIT DOWN AND GIVE ME 20. Flights. Image credit 2nd Lt. Veronica Jordan
The three-week program represents an admission; America’s been outpaced in the drone department. As Captain Rachel Martin diplomatically puts it, "This course is a catch-up. We're behind globally."
Soldiers are taught to wrangle resin, filament, and carbon fiber 3D printers with the same proficiency they'd apply to field-stripping a rifle. Students master CAD software, manipulate STL files, and contribute to a centralized repository. And the training progression is beautifully methodical: 20-25 hours in simulation software (presumably with fewer respawn options than Call of Duty), followed by live exercises at the Military Operations on Urban Terrain site, where soldiers learn the delicate art of "fire support integration" through drone video feeds.
Intriguingly, UALC acknowledges that military innovation increasingly resembles software development: rapid prototyping, continuous integration, and user feedback loops. Major Wolf Amacker's (what an ON-BRAND name!) observation that "this is constantly changing" and they're "building something that can grow with the force" reads like something from a Silicon Valley product roadmap.
3DPrintingIndustry.com (which is like a restaurant named Best Pizza in ____) provided the full mission brief below.
It’s a relationship old enough to vote, and even attempt that hairpin turn!
For 18 blazing years, Oracle Red Bull Racing has benefitted from a partnership with Hexagon that has brought more 3D scanning, metrology, and digitalization than the Monaco Grand Prix brings sunglassed celebrities. And it’s now confirmed to continue.
He doesn’t need a hand, just a high five for that scan. Image credit 3D Natives
To honor the soon-to-be-multi-decade collab, Manufacturing Quality visited with Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence’s VP of Global Marketing, Alexandre Aimé. Q&A topics include lessons from 18 years in motorsports, how many thousands(!) of design changes per season, Hexagon solutions drawn directly from the partnership, regulations, laser tracking, and “reducing faults”.
There was once a dam there. China’s 1975 Banqiao failure. Image credit Ohio State University
In engineering, overconfidence and nature make uneasy bedfellows. We forge monuments to human ingenuity: dams that tame rivers, towers that pierce clouds, bridges that span baffling distances. Yet we do so in a world governed by forces that remain, ultimately, beyond our control or prediction. The greater our confidence in these structures, the more catastrophic our blind spots can be.
The night of August 7, 1975 was one of urgency, along the Ru River in Henan Province, China. For weeks, the region had been lashed by Typhoon Nina, a relentless storm that delivered rain far beyond what the new Banqiao Dam was designed to handle. As floodwaters rose, workers heaved sandbags and piled everything possible atop the dam’s crest, fighting against the mounting pressure of a swelling reservoir.
Banqiao was heralded as a marvel of its time, a massive earthen dam built in the early 1950s, and nicknamed “Iron Dam” for its robust expectations of flood control and power generation. Its design accounted for what was considered an extreme “once in a thousand years” flood event. Yet, no one anticipated the meteorological perfect storm that dumped over 40 inches of rain in a single day. The dam’s spillway capacity was insufficient, erosion began to rapidly degrade the crest, and critical structural vulnerabilities compounded risk.
By the early morning of August 8, the dam was overtopped. The earthen embankment grew unstable and began to disintegrate. Then, fatal catastrophes. A wall of water, over 30 feet tall and seven miles wide, tore through downstream villages and farmland with such speed and force that thousands perished before they could even comprehend the danger. Estimates place the death toll from Banqiao and more than 60 neighboring dams as high as 240,000, perhaps the deadliest structural failure in human history.
What gaps allowed a structure once deemed "unbreakable," to collapse with such ferocity? Chronic underestimation of extreme weather risks, poor coordination and communication among contractors and engineers, inadequate spillway design, and a damaged ecosystem that exacerbated flooding all played roles. Furthermore, warnings from hydrologists and engineers about insufficient flood discharge capacity went largely unheeded. After the failure, the silence and secrecy surrounding the disaster only delayed lessons learned.
Today's reality capture could have rewritten this tragedy entirely. Drone-driven LiDAR maintaining continuous aerial surveillance, underwater ROVs mapping submerged erosion, thermal imaging revealing internal seepage - this robotic inspection fleet could have detected structural compromise long before failure.
As millimeter-precise point cloud comparisons revealed geometry changes under hydraulic pressure, predictive algorithms could have identified deterioration patterns in their earliest stages. A digital twin fed by multi-sensor networks would have tracked the dam's slow degradation through countless flood cycles, mapping weakness pre-crisis.
Instead of workers blindly piling sandbags during the final hours, engineers could have implemented repairs during dry seasons, reinforced vulnerable sections systematically, or planned controlled demolition years in advance. Collectively, this all means scheduled maintenance instead of emergency response, planned relocations instead of mass evacuations, proactive engineering instead of posthumous investigation.
Banqiao's "Iron Dam" nickname reflected humanity's ancient arrogance toward natural forces. Today's innovation offers something better: the humility to measure degradation as it happens, and respond before nature renders our confidence catastrophically irrelevant.
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