Friendship Gate, Philadelphia, United States of America
| General Attributes |
DOI| 10.34946/D6SK5P | |
| Project Name | Friendship Gate, Philadelphia |
| Country | United States of America |
| Status | Published |
| Citation |
| Lori Aument, Alex Beglan, L.R. Aument LLC, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates (WJE) 2026: Friendship Gate, Philadelphia - Photogrammetry - Terrestrial, Photogrammetry - Aerial, Data Derivatives - 3D photogrammetry, Survey Data, Thermography. Distributed by Open Heritage 3D. https://doi.org/10.34946/D6SK5P |
| Download |
| Spatial Data | Download (Links to all available data types will be emailed) |
| Data Type |
Size |
Device Name |
Device Type |
| Photogrammetry - Terrestrial | Not available | Sony a7R II | Mirrorless |
| Photogrammetry - Aerial | Not available | DJI Mavic 3 | Drone |
| Data Derivatives - 3D photogrammetry | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Survey Data | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| Thermography | Not available | DJI Mavic 3 | Drone |
| Background |
| Site Description | The China Friendship Gate, a city landmark at 10th and Arch Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, marks the symbolic entrance to the vibrant Chinatown neighborhood. The gate spans 10th Street, standing 42-feet tall, 34-feet wide, and 10-feet deep. The street is busy early in the morning until late at night, with grocery stores, restaurants, shops, and apartments on upper floors. Philadelphia's China Friendship Gate was constructed in 1984 as a collaboration between American architect Sabrina Soong and artists and engineers from China. The concrete structure is clad with traditional Qing dynasty wood details, most notably the Dougong brackets that support the terracotta tile roof. The wood elements, painted in greens, blues, reds, and golds, undulate with dragon motifs. Terracotta animals parade along the ridges of the roof. | |
| Project Description | Philadelphia's China Friendship Gate was documented to aid future conservation projects. While in good condition overall in 2025, the paint is beginning to fade and peel on some elements and a coating applied to the roof tiles is also beginning to fail. WJE provided the China Friendship Gate model to the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation as a 3D model training project for its staff. The team used multiple documentation techniques: Terrestrial LiDAR, Terrestrial Photogrammetry, and Aerial Photogrammetry. The Gate provided multiple challenges to documentation, both during field survey and modeling.
Field Survey: Located at a busy downtown intersection, documentation took place during limited, scheduled street closures to allow us to fly the drone. However, the area under the Gate was also needed by crews to set up for events during these times, and all of the documentation activities attracted more people as well. The sides of the gate sit very close to adjacent buildings, providing very narrow openings to fly drones for photogrammetry.
Modeling: The north and south sides of the Gate are very similar, and modeling software could not distinguish one side from another, despite the use of multiple targets in the field. The photogrammetry software struggled to develop depth maps and position point clouds at the smooth, rounded surfaces of the supporting columns. | |
| External Project Link | View exhibit |
| Collection Date | 2025-10-04 to 2025-10-09 |
| Publication Date | 2026-07-01 |
| License Type | CC BY-NC |
| Model Information |
| Reuse Score | A - High-Quality Model with Accurate Georeferencing |
| Curator Notes | The GCPs have various coordinate systems, some work would be required to unify them. -Scott OH3D |
| Entities |
| Contributors | Lori Aument , Alex Beglan, L.R. Aument LLC, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates (WJE) |
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