CyArk

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

CyArk

CyArk is a nonprofit, noncommercial project of the Kacyra Family Foundation located in Orinda, California, United States. The company's website refers to it as a "High-Definition Heritage Network".

k was founded in 2002 by Iraqi

Iraqi

Iraqi may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to the country of Iraq* Iraqi people, persons from Iraq, or of Iraqi descent. For information about the Iraqi people, see Demographics of Iraq and Culture of Iraq....
expatriate and civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering, one of the many engineering professions. Originally a civil engineer worked on public works projects and was contrasted with the military engineer, who worked on armaments and defenses....
Ben Kacyra, who was instrumental in the invention and marketing of the first truly portable laser scanner

3D scanner

A 3D scanner is a device that analyzes a real-world object or environment to collect data on its shape and possibly its appearance . The collected data can then be used to construct digital, three dimensional models useful for a wide variety of applications....
designed for surveying purposes during the 1990s, from his Cyrax

Cyrax (HDS system)

Cyrax is a line of 3D scanner systems. They are portable scanning systems mostly based on 3D scanner#Time-of-flight technology. Civil engineers Ben Kacyra and Jerry Dimsdale invented and patented the technology in 1998 ....
corporation.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'CyArk'

Start a new discussion about 'CyArk'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

History

CyArk was founded in 2002 by Iraqi

Iraqi

Civil engineer

3D scanner

Cyrax (HDS system)

Leica Geosystems

Leica Geosystems based in eastern Switzerland produces products and systems for surveying and geographical measurement . Its products employ a variety of technologies including Global Positioning System satellite navigation and laser rangefinders to enable users to model existing structures, terrains in computer based systems to high accur...
in 2001, Kacyra dedicated his energy and finances, through CyArk, to application of the new technology in the documentation of archaeological and cultural heritage

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical Cultural artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations....
resources, particularly threatened ancient architecture

Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
found at sites such as Colorado

Colorado

The State of Colorado is a U.S. state located in the Mountain States of the United States of America. Colorado may also be considered to be a part of the Western United States and Southwestern United States regions of the United States....
's Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde may refer to:*Mesa Verde National Park, a national park in Montezuma County, Colorado, U.S.*Mesa Verde Middle School , a middle school in Moorpark, California, California...
, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
's Pompeii

Pompeii

Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Ancient Rome town-city near modern Naples in the Italy region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei....
, and Kacyra's native Mosul

Mosul

Mosul is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some 400 km northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linkin...
in Iraq – also known as the biblical Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n city of Nineveh

Nineveh

Nineveh , an "exceeding great city", as it is called in the Book of Jonah, lay on the eastern bank of the Tigris in ancient Assyria, across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, Iraq....
. CyArk generated a fairly large amount of publicity in 2007, at least in part seemingly due to the relevance of Kacyra's life story to current global events and the ongoing Iraq War

Iraq War

The Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War, the Occupation of Iraq, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an ongoing conflicts military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a Multinational force in Iraq now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United King...
, during which much of the country's cultural patrimony has disappeared during a continuing spasm of looting

Archaeological looting in Iraq

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, archaeological looting has become a major problem. Though some sites, such as Ur and Nippur, are protected by US and Coalition forces, most are not....
.

Project Focus

CyArk's mission statement notes that it is "dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage sites through the CyArk 3D Heritage Archive, an internet archive which is the repository for heritage site data developed through laser scanning, digital modeling, and other state-of-the-art spatial technologies.". The publicly-accessible web archive focuses on each archaeological site studied with a short film introduction, clickable thumbnail photographs of areas of the site and a site plan; as well as three-dimensional images of site details such as rooms and profiles (often taken from a "point cloud

Point cloud

A point cloud is a set of vertices in a three-dimensional coordinate system. These vertices are usually defined by X, Y and Z coordinates....
" image showing the raw scan data) and computer-generated reconstructions. The site also has a section on hazards, composed of a world map delineating heritage sites at risk from earthquakes and sea level rise due to Global Warming

Global warming

Global warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation....
. Befitting the public educational aspect of their mission, CyArk has provided for nonprofit use of all images through a Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creativity works available for others to build upon legally and to share....
license, an unusual move for producers of such content.

Funding

CyArk's website states that it is funded primarily through foundation grants and has established working relationships with numerous project partners in the engineering, media, and academic worlds; including Plowman Craven, PBS, and UC Berkeley, where the company coordinated an internship program with the department of archaeology in 2006-2007. The web address currently directs visitors straight to the and not to a website under the berkeley.edu domain, however, so the current status of this internship is unknown.

External links

, developed by CyArk
CyArk

CyArk is a nonprofit, noncommercial project of the Kacyra Family Foundation located in Orinda, California, United States. The company's website refers to it as a "High-Definition Heritage Network"....
to demonstrate potential impact of climate change (and earthquakes) on World Heritage Sites
at Google
Google

Google Inc. is an United States public company, earning revenue from AdWords related to its Google search, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Apps, Orkut, and YouTube services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the Google Search Appliance....
's Annual partner forum, Zeitgeist, in 2008