SceneViz Underwater

Editing digital model of diver in SketchUp

When I first sat down with the plaintiff in a recent ocean diving injury case, I was baffled by his explanation of what happened. I'm usually pretty quick on the uptake, even for complex, technical issues. But in this case I had no frame of reference to help me visualize the event. How could he explain to someone who's not a commercial diver what it's like to work in the open ocean with 10 foot swells? This was a perfect application for Fat Pencil Studio's SceneViz process.

We started by creating a digital model to roughly explain the scene: a diver straddling a pipe. Then we met via Fuze (a remote collaboration app that allows real time screen sharing) to work out details such as: What was the body position? How close to the end of the pipe? Where was the the pilot boat? After a couple rounds of revisions, we had two illustrations and a series of maps to explain the incident with more clarity and accuracy than would be possible with words alone.

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Joshua Cohen is a Principal at Fat Pencil Studio