Unlocking the Urban Photographic Record Through 4D Scene Understanding and Modeling

人们越来越需要新的方法来获取呈指数增长的历史图像档案。必须超越编目、索引和关键字驱动的数据库，实现计算机至少部分理解图像内容的范式。推动场景理解和3D建模的最新技术将使人们能够以全新的方式查看和体验历史和/或时间变化的图像。本研究旨在建立随时间变化的3D模型，这些模型可以将与外观，演变和围绕一个地方或人工制品的事件相关的大量图像集合在一起，如“4D城市”项目所示：完全自动构建4D数据库，显示单个城市随时间的演变。就智力优势而言，该项目将在以下方面取得进步：(1)跨空间和时间匹配场景结构的单视图图像解释；(2)基于模型、概率推理和随机语法的高级先验知识编码；(3)引入时间作为附加的推论对象。该项目预计将在城市规划、历史教育、研究和保护等领域对社会产生广泛影响。此外，新开发的算法还可以应用于取证和情报收集等其他应用领域。最后，计划的传播工作将集中在亚特兰大4D城市项目的实例上，并将通过基于网络的交付和亚特兰大历史中心的信息亭安装来接触许多人。http://4d-cities.cc.gatech.edu

There is a growing need for novel ways to access the exponentially growing archives of historical imagery. It is imperative to go beyond cataloging, indexing, and keyword driven databases, to a paradigm where the computer at least partially understands the content of images. Pushing the state of the art in scene understanding and 3D modeling will enable radical new ways to view and experience historical and/or temporally varying imagery. This research aims at building time-varying 3D models that can serve to pull together large collections of images pertaining to the appearance, evolution, and events surrounding one place or artifact over time, as exemplified by the "4D City" project: the completely automatic construction of a 4D database showing the evolution over time of a single city.In terms of intellectual merits, the project will advance the state of the art in (1) single-view image interpretation for matching scene structure across space and time; (2) model-based, probabilistic inference and stochastic grammars to encode high-level prior knowledge; and (3) introducing time as an additional object of inference.The project is expected to broadly impact society in the areas of urban planning, historical education, research, and preservation. In addition, the newly developed algorithms can be applied in other application areas such as forensics and intelligence gathering. Finally, the planned dissemination efforts will center on an instantiation of the 4D City project in Atlanta, and will touch many through web-based delivery and a kiosk installation in the Atlanta History Center. http://4d-cities.cc.gatech.edu