The iconic mountaintop statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been immortalised in 3D. A company called Pix4D used a quad-rotor drone to take thousands of high-definition photographs of the statue, which were then stitched into the 3D model shown in the video above.
It's not the first time drones have precisely reproduced a landmark in 3D. In 2013, Pix4D was part of a team that used a whole fleet of drones to map the Matterhorn mountain in the Swiss Alps
Drones are also being used to map disaster regions, to scout out farmland and to count wildlife in national parks. Their range of uses is likely to expand as hardware and software improves and countries around the world adapt their laws to accommodate them.
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