My good friend (and brother from another mother) Hawaii based Marine Scientist Sly Lee has been featured in the Wired UK online and soon to be in the Wired print edition. Sly uses Autodesk Memento to build accurate 3D models to help track the heath and growth or destruction of a coral reef in 3D as opposed to 2D X Y grids which are difficult for most to understand. In addition to being amazing to look at like art especially when 3D printed but they valuable have 3D volumetric and comprehensive data.
It is so amazing to use the Autodesk software tool Memento to generate accurate and beautiful 3D models from only photographs, but even more impactful when the models serve a good purpose like science of the disappearing coral reefs. I want scientist like Sly to study the better data and find the cause and a solution to save the reefs not just capture a digital record of what the reefs once were and the only record my great grandchildren may ever know.
Marine ecologist builds 3D models of corals open to all (Wired UK)
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2015/02/start/coral-coralled
"Ultimately, Lee plans to build a comprehensive Wikipedia of 3D corals that anyone can populate and explore. "Humans don't make decisions based on data alone," he says. "This is so visual, so immersive, that you can actually have an underwater experience."
