Drones and Architectural Visualization: Exploring Building (Re)Presentation Through Thermal Patterns Data

As an emerging technology, drone is regarded as a potential catalyst for the future design economies. In the context of Malaysia, there has been a surge of interest in appropriating drones within the current technological scene. While the recent progress shows a promising prospect for local drone industries, there have been nevertheless little academic studies trying to systematically investigate the research application of drone technologies in Malaysia. Bridging this knowledge gap, this paper explores an initial study to investigate the representation of architectural tectonics using drone technology. Following the investigation, several issues related to architectural visualization, thermal mapping and building construction are discussed. As a preliminary experiment, the paper constitutes an early attempt to further explore potential research related to drones and architectural visualization in Malaysia that may be beneficial to architects, building engineers, designers and researchers alike.