Tower inspections & 3D reality capture

Cell Tower Gaussian Digital Twin

A photorealistic, navigable reconstruction of an operating telecom monopole—built directly from a systematic drone inspection capture.

This is not a stock 3D model or an artist’s approximation. Every visible antenna face, mount, cable loop, platform, and section of the compound comes from calibrated imagery of the real tower.

Model flythrough

A guided pass through the digital twin

24 seconds · rendered from the Gaussian model

The guided render provides a quick overview of both equipment tiers. Use the interactive viewer below to stop, orbit, and inspect from your own angle.

Interactive deliverable

Explore the tower in 3D

Drag to orbit · scroll to zoom

Gaussian digital twin preview of the cell tower

~7.5 MB web twin · no app or download required

719

aligned drone views

1.67M

Gaussians in the trained master

30K

optimization steps

held-out validation views

Inspection capture to digital twin

Built from the original source data

The flight was designed around the structure: stacked orbits, equipment-level obliques, and full-height coverage. Metashape solved the camera positions and produced a colored alignment cloud from 83,473 matched points.

Those calibrated views trained the Gaussian model at up to 3072-pixel resolution. The result preserves thin mounts, panel faces, cable bundles, and view-dependent appearance that a conventional web mesh often loses.

The viewer above is a cleaned, compressed publishing derivative. The full 1.67-million-Gaussian master remains the archival source.

Two representations, two jobs

The point cloud proves the alignment. The Gaussian twin shows the asset.

The point cloud is worth showing because it exposes the geometric scaffold beneath the reconstruction. It confirms that the mast, antenna tiers, compound, and surrounding features registered as one calibrated scene. The Gaussian model turns that solved geometry and the source photographs into the realistic visual twin used for inspection review.

Colored Metashape and COLMAP alignment point cloud of the cell tower — Alignment point cloud
83,473 calibrated tie points · geometry and registration layer

Gaussian splat render showing the tower and both antenna levels — Gaussian reconstruction
Photorealistic appearance layer · generated from the calibrated views

Real model output

Inspection views from the Gaussian twin

Every image below is a render from the trained tower model—not a screenshot of the Metashape mesh and not an AI-generated substitute.

Front oblique Gaussian render of the upper antenna array

Close Gaussian render of antenna panels, mounts, and cable loops

Gaussian render showing the upper and lower tower equipment levels

Gaussian render of the monopole base and fenced equipment compound

Project deliverables

A review-ready record of the asset

The same capture supports several levels of use—from a fast browser-based walkthrough to deeper review of the calibrated source project.

Interactive Gaussian-splat digital twin
Calibrated camera solution and colored point cloud
High-resolution held-out validation renders
Editable Metashape reconstruction project
Archival full-quality 3D Gaussian master