Documenting the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

In 2018 CyArk joined forces with the National Park Service to document the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC.

By taking thousands of images CyArk was able to document every square inch of the monument’s surface.

A dark biofilm (a layer of algae, fungi and bacteria) had grown on the dome so CyArk needed to obtain baseline documents to help them understand how to conserve the structure of the site.

As drones are not allowed in Washington DC, CyArk photographed the site from the National Park Service’s law enforcement helicopter.

The site was also laser scanned to make sure the data was accurate and precise.

The photographs taken from the air and ground were then put together with the laser scan data to create a high resolution 3D model. 

The high resolution model was used to produce architectural drawings as the Park Service works to clean the monument.