The following 3D model is obtained by stitching together five separate scans taken at five different locations. Each scan is taken by a SICK laser scanner, mounted on top of a rotating mobile robot. Each scan contains the range data for 360 degree around the center of the laser scanner.
This model is a reconstruction of the south-west corner of the first floor of the Gates building.
This is a VRML model, which you can walk through interactively. You need a VRML plug-in for your web browser to view the VRML model. One good plug-in cosmoplayer can be downloaded from here. There are versions for Windows and SGI. For other platforms, you can find the proper VRML browser at The VRML Repository.
The size of this model has been greatly simplied from the raw data. The five scans originally contain a total of 880,000 vertices and 1,680,000 triangles. This simplied model contains only fewer than 8500 vertices and 17,800 triangles. This big reduction of model size results in much smaller file size, faster download time and more responsive interactive visualization in the walk-through.
A new efficient algorithm is being designed and implemented to further reduce the model size. The entire model (for example, for the entire floor) will be represented by only a small number of high level objects.