In 2016, representing people in architectural virtual reality presented a common challenge: 2D cutouts looked phony and broke immersion, while high-polygon “realistic” models were computationally expensive and often fell into the uncanny valley—that unsettling feeling when a replica looks almost, but not quite, human.
The proposed solution was a collection of colourful, low-poly people. This approach was inspired by the French artist Xavier Veilhan, who builds faceted, triangulated sculptures from 3D scans. The goal was to provide a clear sense of human scale and presence without the performance cost or strange appearance of realistic models.
The creation process for these figures began with extremely detailed source models. For instance, one figure was derived from a 3.5 million polygon 3D scan of a bust of François Willème, the 19th-century inventor of photosculpture. Using a technique called decimation, this high-density mesh was algorithmically simplified, reducing it to a lightweight format. This retained the essential human form while being efficient enough for real-time VR applications, striking a balance between representation and performance.