Field Update and Media Advisory: Scanning the San Antonio Missions

Digitally Documenting a National Park Service Treasure

by Elizabeth Lee
January 27, 2010
Last week field work began on our much anticipated San Antonio Missions project. This project, announced last December, involves the digital documentation of 4 of the Missions of San Antonio as well as the oldest continually used aqueduct in North America.

CyArk and scanning partners Critigen began the field collection last week. The project work has continued through this week, and has begun to yield some pretty impressive images. Scanning began at Mission San Juan Wednesday morning. By Thursday morning the scans at San Juan were almost complete except for one final scan from the roof. In order to access the roof safely, Critigen's Brad Oswald was loaded into a cherry picker along with the scanner and tripod. The tripod was carefully positioned on the corner of the roof and the scanner completed the capture of the back of the bell tower without anyone ever having to set foot on the roof.

Work will wrap up this Friday with scanning at Mission San Jose. A press event will be held Friday morning at 9:00am to showcase the initial scanning results and provide attendees with an opportunity to see the scanning first hand. Please see below and the attached media advisory for more information.

Media Advisory
WHO: Scott Bentley, National Park Service, Sue Ann Garcia, Los Compadres de San Antonio Missions, Elizabeth Lee, CyArk Foundation, Roy Castillo, Critigen

WHAT: Announcement of Internationally Significant Documentation Project and Live Demonstration.

WHEN: Friday, January 29 at 9:00 AM

WHERE: Mission San José, 6701 San José Drive Mission San José Granary (turn east onto Napier Avenue off Roosevelt Avenue, then take left onto San José Drive – Enter compound and head towards Mission San José Church)

OTHER: Handouts and active demonstration of 3D LASER Scanning procedure will be available to the press
Mission San Jose, where the press conference will be held January 29
Placing the scanner on the roof at Mission San Juan
Sneak preview of the laser scan data collected at Mission San Juan