Aerometrex: Global and Papal award winning technology  

Industry leading Adelaide-based tech company,  Aerometrex has stepped forward in London to receive a global commendation at the internationally renowned, Bentley ‘Be Inspired’ Awards – a showcasing of the world’s most outstanding advancements in infrastructure design construction and operations.

On Saturday, September 26th 2015, at Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pope Francis gave an unprecedented address to ,000 people. The holy father’s speech was delivered from the podium of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

The project’s key objective was to manage all aspects of the event including crowd accommodation and seating, road closures, public transport and most importantly security.

The Philadelphia Police supported the Aerometrex work by providing a helicopter as a platform for image capture, and the models were used by security organisations to ensure the safety of Pope Francis throughout the event.

The turnaround time deadline was tight and seamless teamwork with US production teams was vital, so the opportunity to adopt Aerometrex’s GPS accurate, high resolution 3D mesh, modelling became critical.
“We executed a detailed square mile capture, right around the Papal speech site, using aerial and ground photography,” Byrne said. “From there, we produced the 3D models and added the photographic fidelity and detail.”

The pure digital data captured by Byrne’s team, created a fully textured and hyper-realistic, 3D image of the Philadelphian landmark, which allowed the production to visualize, identify and monitor every vantage point within a square mile of the Papal stage.

Aerometrex’s Technical Director, and award recipient, David Byrne, was flown in from Adelaide, to direct the globally significant assignment.

Scott Mirkin, co-founder of ESM Productions and co-production partner of the Papal event to the US, said the inclusion of Aerometrex took the preparation and consequent presentation of the visit to a whole new level.
 
“Previous large scale events were executed using 2D CAD graphics and constant site surveys,” Murkin summarised.
 
“The ability to leverage 3D modelling was an absolute game-changer for us.”