Core & Space
Core & Space Collaborate
Reality capture · Digital twins · Civil infrastructure

Core & Space

I’m Mathew Varkey, at Carnegie Mellon University. Core & Space is where I capture real structures as 3D data and turn them into digital twins.

Scroll in Collaborate
— ptsDrag to orbit · scroll to scan
01 · Inside a capture

Real rooms, rebuilt as data.

A walkthrough of a 3D reality capture. Every surface you see was reconstructed from a scan, not modelled by hand.

Live capture3D walkthrough
02 · What I do

I like structures, and the data behind them.

I started out on construction sites and design desks. Now I spend my time scanning, reconstructing and connecting the built world. This is the work I keep coming back to, and I’d love to do it with you.

1

Capture

I fly drones, run LiDAR scans and shoot phone video of bridges, buildings and sites.

UAV · LiDAR · mobile
2

Reconstruct

I turn that footage into point clouds, meshes and Gaussian splats you can measure.

Point clouds · splats · meshes
3

Connect

I link the geometry to drawings, materials and inspection records with knowledge graphs.

Digital thread · Neo4j
4

Monitor

I come back, capture again, and show what changed and what needs attention.

Change · condition
If you build things

Contractors, consultants and structural engineers. I speak your language, from RFIs and RA bills to span erection, and I can show you what scanning adds to a project you already know.

If you build software

Labs, startups and researchers in 3D, AI and digital twins. I bring real structures, real site problems and an engineer’s eye for what accuracy actually matters.

Let’s work together
03 · Tech

The capture stack, tested on real structures.

Each tool is used for what it does best and checked against the others, so you know how much to trust the result.

Gaussian splatting

Photoreal 3D scenes from ordinary photos and video that render in real time, even in a browser.

3DGS · radiance fields

UAV photogrammetry

Drone surveys that produce orthomosaics, surface models and georeferenced point clouds.

GSD · GCPs · orthomosaic

LiDAR

Dense laser scans used as ground truth and for precise measurement of structural geometry.

Point density · registration

Knowledge graphs

A digital thread that links each asset to its materials, history and inspections, with drift detection on top.

Neo4j · Python
04 · Recent work

Research, presented in public.

Two projects from Carnegie Mellon, shown at a research poster session and in a class presentation.

Mathew Varkey beside his research poster on a graph-based digital thread for concrete
Research poster

Engineering reasoning under uncertainty

A graph-based digital thread that makes concrete life-cycle decisions traceable, from batching and curing to structural acceptance, and shows how measurement uncertainty carries through each stage.

Neo4j · drift detection · IESS, CMU
Mathew Varkey presenting the infrastructure stack of a data-centre heat recovery system
Team study

From servers to sustainability

A life cycle assessment of data-centre waste heat, including the wells, heat pumps and steel behind geothermal heat storage.

OpenLCA · US LCI · 12-714
Title slide: From Servers to Sustainability, Reimagining Data Center Energy
Presented at CMU

Reimagining data-centre energy

With Mrunal Dusane, Beiming Hu and Alexandra Wang, for Environmental Life Cycle Assessment.

05 · Civil

We understand the deck.

Before the scanners, there were sites. I’ve worked on a bridge from tender to span erection, and designed concrete structures in the office. So when I scan your project, I know what I’m looking at.

SPAN 1SPAN 2SPAN 3 P1P2P3P4 GIRDER BRIDGE · ELEVATION · NTS

  • Bridges

    Construction · assessment

    I’ve helped plan and track a long bridge in Kerala, worked through tenders, and stood on site for QA/QC and span erection. At CMU I’m modelling how Pittsburgh’s bridges deteriorate.

  • Structural design

    ETABS · STAAD · SAFE · AutoCAD

    I’ve designed and optimised reinforced concrete structures, including treatment plants, and cut concrete without cutting safety.

  • Site management

    Planning · RFIs · billing

    Schedules, RFIs, RA bills, progress reports. The everyday work that gets a structure built on time.

  • Asset management

    Condition · deterioration

    Turning inspection data into maintenance priorities that owners can act on.

  • Sustainability

    OpenLCA · BIM

    Life cycle assessment and BIM workflows that measure a structure’s environmental cost.

06 · Contact

Have a structure worth capturing?

Core & Space is open to research collaborations, pilot projects with labs and engineering teams, and conversations about digital twins for infrastructure.

mvarkey@andrew.cmu.edu Email me