SBIR Phase I: Fast Creation of Photorealistic 3D Models using Consumer Hardware

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是巨大的：一个成功的项目将改变建筑业，通过减少法律冲突、进度失误和糟糕的决策，使其更有效率；该项目有可能通过允许买家和卖家准确地在线展示物业，减少现场访问，从而提高房地产销售和营销的效率。拟议的工作将能够快速、轻松地创建100%完整的物理空间可视文档；该文档可以在整个施工过程中多次生成。通过这样做，拟议的项目将使建筑业的专业人员能够比以往任何时候都更有效地跟踪进度并与他们的团队进行沟通。该提案的第二个令人兴奋的效果将是创建庞大、详细、前所未有的建筑项目和房地产数据集，使人工智能和计算机视觉的技术创新能够影响美国和世界上最大的行业之一。例如，可以对系统进行培训，以自动发现安全问题，增加安全经理的努力，并使工人比以往任何时候都更安全。这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将开发一种快速、易于使用和廉价的方法，使用现成的消费者硬件创建照片级逼真的3D模型。技术障碍包括验证用消费者硬件生成的模型的质量和效果，在设备上近乎即时地创建3D模型，以及在没有人工注释的情况下自动创建通过3D空间的路线。随着这些障碍的清除，高级工作可能包括在同一地点随着时间的推移捕获的3D模型之间进行自动分析。由于该系统的易用性，它将使收集大型、全新的数据集成为可能。这项研究的目标是制作一种原型，外行可以使用它来创建物理遗址的3D模型，以便对其进行记录。实现这些目标的计划包括针对上面列出的障碍进行迭代软件开发，以及指导和改进开发的持续用户反馈。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be large: a successful project would transform the construction industry, making it far more efficient by reducing legal conflicts, schedule slips and poor decision making; the project has the potential to make real estate sales and marketing more efficient by allowing buyers and sellers to accurately represent properties online, reducing the need for on-site visits. The proposed work will enable the fast and easy creation of 100% complete visual documentation of a physical space; this documentation can be generated many times throughout the course of construction. In so doing, the proposed project will allow professionals in the construction industry to track progress and communicate with their teams far more efficiently than ever before. A second exciting effect of the proposal will be the creation of vast, detailed, never before seen datasets of construction projects and real estate, allowing technical innovations in artificial intelligence and computer vision to impact one of the largest industries in the nation and the world. For example, systems could be trained to automatically spot safety concerns, augmenting the efforts of safety managers and keeping workers safer than ever before.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a fast, easy to use and cheap method to create photorealistic 3D models using off the shelf consumer hardware. Technical hurdles include validating the quality and efficacy of models generated with consumer hardware, near instantaneous creation of 3D models on device, and automatic creation of routes through the 3D space without human annotation. With these hurdles cleared, advanced work might include automated analytics between and among 3D models of the same site captured over time. Because of the system's ease of use, it will enable the collection of large, totally novel datasets. The goal of the research is to produce a prototype that a layperson can use to create a 3D model of a physical site in order to document it. The plan to reach these goals includes iterative software development against the hurdles listed above, as well as continuous user feedback to guide and refine development.