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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20260701T170000
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DTSTAMP:20260623T120042Z
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SUMMARY:Seam Work and Digital Complexity in China’s Real-Scene 3D - Yi Gu (University of Toronto)
DESCRIPTION:Abstract:\n \nThe Real-Scene 3D China initiative\, launched in 2019\, set out to turn photorealistic three-dimensional spatial data into what state documents call an “important new infrastructure” and a “unified spatial positioning framework and analytical basis” for Digital China. While LiDAR and satellite imagery also enter the workflow\, the privileged technique of Real-Scene 3D China is oblique photogrammetry: multiple aerial cameras capture ground objects from vertical and slanted angles\, and software reconstructs these images as a textured 3D mesh. Unlike studies that examine photogrammetry primarily through heritage preservation\, film and gaming industries\, or computer-vision approaches to automated reconstruction\, this talk asks what happens when photographic realism becomes cartographic and administrative infrastructure. \nI propose “seam work” to describe the operations through which Chinese software systems address the fractures generated by photogrammetric meshes: holes\, texture smearing\, geometric distortions\, coordinate mismatches\, and the absence of object-based segmentation and semantic enrichment. DP-Modeler repairs and supplements faulty photogrammetric surfaces. SuperMap overlays vector units to perform single-object extraction\, turning continuous meshes into selectable and queryable entities. Mirauge3D and related tools further suggest how imperfect data\, lower-cost production\, and bureaucratic campaigns helped Real-Scene 3D reach industrial scale. Drawing on media archaeology\, history of technology\, and visual culture studies\, I examine these domestic software systems not merely as expressions of China’s ambition for indigenous innovation\, but as epistemic techniques for making defective and heterogeneous spatial data usable at scale. \nWhile attentive to China’s historical and political specificities\, I approach the booming Chinese geospatial information industry not as a technological exception but as a diagnostic site. The closest comparison may be the U.S. military’s One World Terrain\, yet Real-Scene 3D China moves one step further in coupling simulation-like realism with cartographic and administrative objectification. Through bureaucratic campaigns\, photorealistic 3D modeling has been extended not only to urban centers but also to the countryside. The case therefore makes visible a political condition of digital complexity: power operates through the management of seams that turn uneven territorial data into administratively legible\, scalable\, and governable spatial order. \nThis event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding. \nIf you would like to attend\, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
URL:https://khk.rwth-aachen.de/event/the-stack-of-territory-digital-complexity-and-the-making-of-geospatial-infrastructures-in-china-yi-gu-university-of-toronto/
LOCATION:Stadtpalais/Online\, Theaterstraße 75\, Aachen\, 52062\, Germany
CATEGORIES:Lecture Series 2026
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