A Yurok Village in WebGL, Built From LIDAR Scans

CyArk's latest Tapestry experience drops you into Sumêg Village, a Yurok ancestral village replica perched above the Pacific in Trinidad, California, rendered from LIDAR scans they captured in late 2021. The geometry is the real thing. Cedar plank houses, a sweat house, a dance house, redwood canoes hewn from single trunks. Yurok interpreters narrate while the scene plays, and once the "Explore in 3D" lens lights up, you get WASD and free run of the place. Walk into the dance house. Look up. The smoke hole is exactly where it should be.

What makes it interesting technically is the pipeline more than any single trick. CyArk is a heritage preservation nonprofit, which means they're funneling survey-grade LIDAR and photogrammetry through whatever decimation, baking, and streaming work it takes to make it browser-friendly without flattening the soul out of it. The Tapestry runtime layers a guided narrative scene graph on top of free-roam navigation, with multimedia hotspots, accessibility theming, and a cursor that drops little footprints behind you as you walk.

Worth clicking through. Run the guided tour once for orientation, then drop into Explore and wander the village on foot.