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Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints all over the world can now watch the progress
of the Rexburg temple. Perched in a corner of the Brigham Young
University-Idaho campus, a specially-assembled webcam observes
the temple’s construction 24-hours a day, through rain, sun and
snow.
The camera sends a live feed to BYU-Idaho servers, which upload
a new image to the Web every 30 seconds. It’s one of several on
the BYU-Idaho campus, but unique in the scope of attention it
receives.
“Five days after the camera went live, it was showing up on
Google,” said Bob Reed of the Server Management department.
“That was exciting for us. We already have people placing links
to our webcam on their sites.”
“We had the project in mind as soon as the temple was
announced,” Reed said. “We watched the Nauvoo temple as it was
built, and we thought the Rexburg temple would probably draw a
large world audience because of its association with BYU–Idaho.”
Reed said the idea received strong support from university
administration as soon as the groundbreaking ceremony occurred
in July. He and department members Daniel Harwood and Randy
Beard set out to make it happen.
“We thought it would be as easy as buying a camera and setting
it up,” Reed recalled. “But almost everything that could go
wrong did.”
The first hurdle was finding a good spot for the camera, Reed
said. “At the time of the temple announcement, the nearest
buildings weren’t even a good option. We finally found a
telephoto lens that could accommodate the distance.”
In preparation, the team coordinated with the construction
project manager to outline the footprint the temple would fill
during its construction. The online image leaves enough empty
space to accommodate the entire temple as it grows wall by wall.
Future plans on the Web site include a still shot gallery that
will feature pictures of the temple site from different angles
using photos taken before the camera was in place.
Despite setbacks, the camera was online Nov. 10. Two images per
day are placed in an archive and will be used to make a video of
temple construction after the project is over.
The Server Management department welcomes any suggestions on how
to improve the site, said Reed.
The temple and other BYU-Idaho webcams can be accessed at
www.byui.edu/webcameras. |