The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has released a movie online that tours a digital recreation of the architect's Taliesin West in Arizona, allowing architecture enthusiasts to explore the desert complex remotely.

The organisation teamed up with surveying company Leica Geosystems to create the short virtual film of Taliesin West ? the desert retreat that Wright built for himself and his students.

Lasting just over a minute, the online film zooms in and out of a 3D model of the complex, capturing its low-level structures, terraces, gardens and pools, furnished interiors and decorative sculptures.

"Through our partnership with Leica Geosystems, we're able to carry our mission, and Wright's vision into the future, by making Taliesin West available to the world so they can experience his ideas, architecture and design in new ways," said Stuart Graff, president and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, in a statement.
To create the virtual model for the tour, the team employed the Leica BLK360 3D-imaging laser scanner. It produces high-resolution panoramic images over a map of data points of the building's structure, known as a point cloud. This information can also be uploaded to computer programmes, such as CAD, and used in future reservation projects involving Taliesin West.

The team paired the Leica footage with 3D images captured by Pro2 camera from Matterport ? a company that produces virtual building tours ? and construction photography and video documen...