FULL CIRCLE TRANSPARENCY

Thomas French, one of our far flung correspondents, sent an interesting and related note. This regards the PBS series Time Scanners.

So that engineers may understand in greater depth the structural integrity of the historic buildings that they are working to stabilize, a new use of laser technology has formed.

Laser scans develops a transparent computer image of the building. With this transparent database, elements like structural cracks, damage, and the effects of settling are visualized.  Various elements that are hidden now become part of the solution.  For example, hidden structural cracks become visible in the transparent image.
This also relates to our correspondent Michael’s topic on engineering forensics.

The transparency of the images is what makes this work. Without the transparency, engineers would not be able to have the holistic understanding of the structure. Various elements that are hidden now become part of the solution.

This technique of course is 100% backwards from transparent drawing. The Time Scanners transparent image is generated after the building is built. Yet I wonder if the knowledge that this technique generates will create a need for transparency thru the design process.

We may realize that possibly the only way to fully understand a building will be thru transparency. And this need for transparency might then shape how we design and how we think about our buildings. What if transparency thru transparent drawing brings the entire process of building a building full circle?