A blown-up Russian tank near Kyiv, a monument for Ukrainian writer Borys Hrinchenko, an apartment building destroyed by artillery, and a slide in a children's playground covered in graffiti—in Ukraine, these objects are among hundreds of landmarks, cultural sites, monuments and everyday things that civilians have scanned on mobile phones through an app called Polycam.
The app's software generates a detailed 3D model that will live permanently in a digital archive as part of an initiative called Backup Ukraine.
The project, launched in April shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, aims to digitally preserve the country's cultural heritage—far from the reach of Russian attacks.
The scans are so high-quality, the project's creators say, that they can be projected in a physical space to explore for educational purposes and can also be used to reconstruct destroyed cultural artifacts.
Ukraine's Ministry of Culture has documented 367 war crimes against the country's cultural heritage as of May 27, including the destruction of 29 museums, 133 churches, 66 theaters and libraries, and a century-old Jewish cemetery, according to its website.
With Backup Ukraine, for the first time in history a country's artifacts are being documented in augmented reality during an ongoing war, a precedent that has sparked conversations about how this technology can be used in other countries experiencing conflict or war.
The team is also exploring the possibility of creating 3D models of destroyed churches and buildings that haven't been scanned, using digital footage from the past.
Halyna Pastushuk reports...
Click on the audio player above to listen.