VOLUMETRIC, NOT PICTORIAL

The word volumetric is replacing the word pictorial.  To operate optimally, we can no longer think in pictorial terms.  We must think volumetrically.  Case in point.

Thomas French, one of our venerable far flung correspondents, wrote in to make sure that we saw the New York Times article regarding the images that self driving cars produce as they scan their environment.  Thomas, ever vigilant to Transparent Drawing related topics, writes that these scanned 3D volumetric images reminds him of our basic precepts;  complete volumetric understanding.

The technology that driverless cars are using to scan and build three dimensional understandings of their environment is called lidar.  This is a confluence of light and radar.  And the three dimensional computer model that results has a high degree of objectivity.  This accuracy is far higher than what humans can generate with less sophisticated measuring and documenting techniques.

For driverless cars to operate better, they need to understand the complete volumes of their surroundings.  For designers to operate better, we need to understand the complete volumes of our solutions.

The key word here is objectivity.  Whether we are talking about self driving cars, or understanding hidden structural components of buildings, or designing volumes, it is transparency which gives this objectivity.  And it is transparency which produces this volumetric understanding.

It is transparency which gets us out of the Renaissance picture perfect world.  In fact the article goes on to mention how the volumetric models are creating a new type of  Romanticism.  It states that just as landscape painters capture and document what they see in an evocative manner, lidar generated models are creating a new and equally evocative understanding.

All of this is another way of saying that we need to continue to draw complete volumes in the analogue.