London Design Festival 2014: as part of the Dezeen and MINI Frontiers exhibition, designer Pernilla Ohrstedt has partnered with 3D-scanning specialists ScanLAB to create Glitch Space, a physical representation of the environmental data that will one day be captured by driverless cars (+ movie).
Glitch Space provides the backdrop for the Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: the future of mobility exhibition at designjunction during the London Design Festival.
Ohrstedt, whose previous projects include the interactive Beatbox Pavilion at the London 2012 Olympic Park, worked with ScanLAB to create a 3D scan of the exhibition space, capturing its landscapes in a digital "point cloud" – an animated version of the scans can be seen above.
This kind of "point cloud" model can be used for a number of functions – architects often overlay it with further data to create accurate renders, plans and physical models of existing spaces during development projects.
Ohrstedt believes that driverless cars will one day use similar technologies to help them navigate.
"Driverless cars will incorporate technology where they are constantly scanning the world around them to be able to seamlessly move around the city, until we have a perfect one-to-one replica that is constantly updating with information," she said.
The installation by Ohrstedt and ScanLAB, who are both based in London, is a physical representation of this data.
ScanLAB used its machines to scan the existing space inside The Sorting Office, a former postal building in London's West End.
The data collected was then used to create a map of dots representing the low-resolution information that early driverless cars will use, with glitches and imperfections.
These were superimposed back onto the space to create the landscape for the exhibition.
Visitors can also view a high-resolution scan of the space using tablets, demonstrating how the technology can already create images that are almost indistinguishable from the real world.
"In the future it's really conceivable that we'll start travelling the virtual world instead of the physical, because it will be scanned at such high resolution," said Ohrstedt.
Glitch Space will be on display at designjunction, which concludes today at The Sorting Office, 21-31 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BA.
Find out more about the Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: future of mobility exhibition »