FUKUSHIMA--A university museum and other organizations have launched a project to preserve the images and data of buildings destroyed by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 3-D for future generations.
FUKUSHIMA--A university museum and other organizations have launched a project to preserve the images and data of buildings destroyed by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 3-D for future generations.
The executive committee of the Fukushima earthquake disaster legacy preservation project, a group of eight organizations in Fukushima Prefecture, and Tohoku University Museum are employing 3-D laser scanners and drone-like multicopters to collect data through Feb. 19.
Yojiro Taketani, 62, a member of the executive committee, stressed the importance of recording the structures as the memories of what damage they incurred gradually fade.
“If we keep a record of post-disaster situations that show the magnitude of natural threats and impact on human life, we can make use of the information to help in disaster prevention,” said Taketani, who is also a specialist at Fukushima Museum. “In the future, we want the public to see the records.”
The high-resolution 3-D laser scanners will not only record the shapes of the structures and other details such as their colors, but they will also record their exact locations. The device will record the shape of a structure with hundreds of millions of dots.
Special goggles will be used to view the final product. The 3-D glasses will provide a virtual experience by allowing users to feel like they are walking through the buildings as they were and look wherever they want just by turning their head.
The university museum has already completed collecting data on the Minami-Sanriku town’s disaster prevention management building in Miyagi Prefecture, which was destroyed by tsunami that followed the earthquake on March 11, 2011. It also recorded the Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki city in the same prefecture.
On Feb. 16 and 17, the team also collected data, both interior and exterior as well as from above, on the Koyasu Kannondo temple in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, which was inundated and destroyed by the tsunami.
Images recorded at the temple include mud-covered dolls, thousands of paper origami cranes and an offertory box, all of which remain as they were following the disaster.
On Feb. 18, the team recorded the structural details of the disaster countermeasures office in Tomioka that was set up immediately after the twin disaster.
The office was abandoned soon after it was established due to the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Tables, a white board and “onigiri” rice balls remain as they were when the area was evacuated, according to the team.
On Feb. 19, members of the team will scan the Ukedo branch office of the Soma Futaba Fisheries Cooperative in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, which was damaged by the tsunami.