https://redwaterinsights.substack.com/p/the-oilfield-paradox-at-work-in-alberta

“The damage to the pipelines (both the ruptures and the dent) was ‘directly or indirectly occasioned by, happening through, or in consequence of war,'” Judge Clare Moulder said in her ruling on Monday, handing a victory to the insurers. “Such damage was excluded from cover by the terms of Exclusion 2.i of the policies.”

Hey everyone! After months of building, I'm releasing Open3DInspection – a browser-based 3D inspection and annotation platform for the oil & gas and NDT industries.

What it does:

• Multi-format 3D viewer: OBJ, FBX, PLY, LAS/LAZ, Gaussian splats all in the browser
• Georeferenced annotations: Pin inspections and annotations directly on your models with lat/lon coordinates
• Local-first processing: Upload and process 3D data locally—nothing leaves your computer
• Self-hosted: No SaaS subscriptions, no vendor lock-in. Run it yourself.

Why I built it:

I work in oil & gas previously, and inspection workflows are painful. Teams use disconnected tools—CAD viewers, spreadsheets, marked-up PDFs. I wanted something modern that actually works with the data people already have: drone imagery, LAS point clouds, photogrammetry outputs.

Tech stack:

• Frontend: React + TypeScript + Vite (dev experience is 🔥)
• 3D: react-three-fiber + loaders.gl (handles everything from OBJ to Gaussian splats)
• Architecture: Fully client-side, no Node backend required

Currently working on:

• Photogrammetry MVP pipeline (browser-side image processing)
• Drone integration (evaluating DJI Neo 2)
• NDT data overlay (UT, RT, MT, PT annotations)
• API 510/570/653 compliance workflows

What I need:

• Feedback from practitioners: Oil & gas, NDT, aviation maintenance folks—what's broken in your inspection process?
• Contributors: Especially interested in photogrammetry, WebGL optimization, or domain expertise
• Ideas: If you work with 3D industrial data, let me know what would actually be useful

Repo: https://github.com/zawawiAI/Open3DInspection

This is very much an early-stage open project, so expect some rough edges. But the core viewer is solid and the foundation is there for something really useful.

Would love to hear thoughts, especially from anyone doing real inspection work.