Matterport, Inc. announced it has captured the restored Aso Shrine Gate and surrounding shrine area as part of an initiative to document and reproduce Japanese cultural assets and historical buildings as 3D digital twins.
Known as one of the “Three Great Gates”, Aso Shrine is a classified important cultural property by the government of Japan and one of the oldest Shinto Shrines in the country, estimated to be more than 2,000 years old. When the majority of buildings within the shrine were destroyed in the Kumamoto earthquake of 2016, the community around Aso Shrine launched a nationwide campaign to restore the cultural site. With its restoration nearly complete, Aso Shrine used Matterport to replicate the building digitally to both promote the finished project and maintain a 3D digital record of the building for future restoration needs.
A leading barrier to restoring ancient structures is a lack of building documentation. With no blueprints or records of construction available when the restoration work began, the team was forced to build off of assumptions based on pre-collapse images and what remained of the buildings.
To produce a photo-realistic 3D view of the building’s structure, the Aso Shrine used Matterport's Capture Services, the company’s on-demand service for quickly and professionally capturing spaces, and Matterport’s state-of-the-art 3D camera, Pro3. With the scaffolding still in place as the tower gate neared completion, Matterport was able to capture the entire structure in roughly two hours, from the ground floor entrance to the copper-tiled roof.
With lidar sensors built into the Pro3 camera, a Matterport digital twin is capable of producing BIM (.ifc, .rvt) and CAD (.dwg) files from detailed point cloud data collected from the 3D capture. Paired with the photorealistic replica of the building, this information will support the shrine during maintenance or renovations required in the future.
“As the restoration was underway, we explored several ways to demonstrate progress to our supporters both in the Aso region and afar. When we learned about Matterport’s capabilities not only to share the shrine, but preserve it with digital documentation, it became clear it was the best tool for the project,” said Mr. Hidetaka Ikeura, Chief Priest of Aso Shrine. “Having now overcome such a significant disaster, Matterport will play an important role in maintaining the heritage of the shrine and encouraging people all over the world to visit it.”
“We were honored to be able to contribute to such a pivotal moment in the restoration of Aso Shrine,” said Howard Xiao, President and Operation Officer of Matterport Japan K.K.. “In today's world where unpredictable natural disasters occur frequently, Matterport can be a critical tool to help historical facilities and structures preserve their existence for future generations to share and learn from.”
Matterport is uniquely suited for the restoration and preservation of historical buildings and structures due to its ease of use and minimal invasiveness, enabling documentation and remote management of spaces that may be difficult to access due to location, age of structure, or safety hazards.
