China’s Ministry of Culture and State Administration of Cultural Heritage, with partial funding from UNESCO, has launched a project to capture the entire length of the Great Wall of China in 3D.

Thanks to its Chinese reseller, IFA Tech, Acute3D’s Smart3DCapture solution has been chosen for the 3D automatic reconstruction part of the project, which was officially launched on 16 September 2014.

The goal of this project is to protect, document, and promote the Great Wall of China to the world. The whole 6,000km length of the Wall and its surroundings will be captured in high resolution over a period of three years.

The Smart3DCapture will be combined with ground imagery and laser scanning. Using Smart3DCapture, Redbird Helicopter Surveying Technology has already produced a part of the Great Wall of China in 3D from images taken by helicopter.

Renaud Keriven, president and CTO of Acute3D said that “mapping such an incredible man-built structure, long enough to be visible from space, dating back so many centuries, is a project which embodies the ability of the human beings to use progress to better understand their history and preserve its heritage.

“At Acute3D, everyone is working very hard to deliver best-in-class solutions which support this amazing enterprise and more generally the reconstruction of many cultural heritage objects and masterpieces around the world.”