Welcome to The Re/Cap Podcast, the expansion of RCN’s Re/Cap Newsletter - where reality capture stands, who’s advancing it, and the history behind it. 

This podcast, as it matures, will be far from a solo act. There will be a revolving door of guests, some of them RCN folk, some of them relevant to stories we’ll cover, and others who just own platinum brains you’re sure to glean something from. Enjoy, and we are honored to have you.

What’s Cappenin’ This Week:

• A mind-warping fossil site discovery 15 years ago…and what 3D scanning did with it

• iPhone whale scans bolster knowledge and conservation

• African city planning looks to airborne scanning

• AI-VR de-escalation training for police

• The American Society of Civil Engineers awards a robotic bridge inspector

• An AEC Error of the Week of a structure sinking faster than Drake’s career

  
  

Quick caps:

[Article] Meta Researchers Generate Photorealistic Avatars From Just Four Selfies

[Interview] Creating impact with geospatial and satellite Earth observation

[Article] Robots Making Robots: These Humanoid Robots Are Getting Set To Reproduce

[Article] AI’s Potential for Transforming The Gaming Industry 

[Video] Boston Dynamics Robotics: Pick, Carry, Place, Repeat | Inside the Lab with Atlas

[Video] I 3D-Printed My Drone Footage (Photogrammetry Magic!)

Episode Timeline

0:03 Podcast intro & context

1:05  Pre/Cap: Mind-bending fossil discovery 15 years ago in Chile

3:10 What’s Cappenin’ this week and quick caps

3:55 Mobi-Dick: Smartphone Capture, Stranded Marine Life, and New Necropsy Knowledge

6:21 Natural Disasters Have Made Africa’s Urban Planning Maddening. Aerial LiDAR’s Gladdening.

8:25 You Have the Right to Remain Silent, and Super Calm, Thanks to This New AI/VR De-Escalation Training

10:00 Truss the Process: American Society of Civil Engineers Awards Robotic Bridge Inspection System

11:29 AEC Error of the Week - Kansai International Airport

Main Re/Cap sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRLZ29mLdSQ

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-qa-smartphones-3d-scans-stranded.html -  https://www.suasnews.com/2025/03/utilizing-drone-technology-and-lidar-for-resilient-town-planning-in-african-cities-against-natural-disasters/

https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-researcher-enhances-police-de-escalation-training-immersive-ai-vr-simulations

https://news.mst.edu/2025/02/missouri-st-researchers-robotic-bridge-inspection-system-earns-asces-2025-pankow-award/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzr8lkiQ3_A&t=1s