Brown CS Alum Thomas Dickerson Helps Replicate Brown In Minecraft For Virtual Visitors
- Posted by Jesse Polhemus
- on April 13, 2020
Click the links that follow for more news about Thomas Dickerson and other recent accomplishments by Brown CS alums.
A recent Brown Daily Herald article provides the story behind a new online replica of the Brown University campus. A joint effort between Brown Esports and Geopipe, it's already providing a valuable service to prospective students during the COVID-19 crisis.
Thomas Dickerson, a Brown CS alum, is a co-founder of Geopipe, which builds algorithms to turn 2D and 3D data into highly detailed 3D virtual models. "We initially heard what Brown Esports was planning from an undergraduate intern over the summer," he tells us. "At the time, there was no pandemic on the horizon, so it mostly seemed like a fun and quirky way to participate in the Brown community. That's especially true because Geopipe's roots are in a project that my co-founder and I collaborated on several years ago to reproduce Manhattan at a 1:1 scale in Minecraft."
When the pandemic hit, Thomas says, the project took on new urgency: "We're hoping it will provide prospective students with a way to get a feel for Brown. Obviously, the CIT is my favorite building on campus, so I took special care to make sure it was reproduced well."
The original article can be found here.
To explore an online map of the replica, click here.
To access the replica in Minecraft (Java Edition only), launch the Minecraft client for version 1.15.2, then click Multiplayer –> Add Server –> enter mc.brownesports.org for the IP address –> click Join.
For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communication Outreach Specialist Jesse C. Polhemus.
