LiDAR meets Art

An interesting 3D art project using point clouds of the 3D Spatial Data Processing research group of Prof. Bernhard Höfle (3DGeo) was recently realized by artist Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann. The data were acquired from natural karst cave features in the Dechen Cave near Iserlohn, Germany both with a low-cost Kinect sensor and terrestrial LiDAR.

For the art project, the 3DGeo group extracted various stalagmites and stalactites from the point clouds. From these, Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann created 3D meshes and printed the objects with a 3D printer – some of them even in real size, such as the so called “Palme”, featuring a height of 2.6 m.

Within the frame of his advancement award in the field of sculpture/installation, Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann presents the final objects to the public at his exhibition in the Town Museum of Oldenburg from 18th September until 15th October. Further information on Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann and his work can be found on his personal website.

We would like to thank Dr. Stefan Niggemann (Dechen Cave administration) for allowing the usage of the data for the art project, as well as Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann for promoting this extraordinary usage of 3D point clouds with his work.

Hämmerle, M., Höfle, B., Fuchs, J., Schröder-Ritzrau, A., Vollweiler, N. & Frank, N. (2014): Comparison of Kinect and Terrestrial LiDAR Capturing Natural Karst Cave 3D Objects. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, Vol. 11(11), pp. 1896-1900. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2014.2313599 and https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.830567

(Text: Vivien Zahs)