The University of Central Florida (UCF) was awarded a National Science Foundation CCRI for “Planning: InfraStructure for Photorealistic Image and Environment Synthesis (I-SPIES).” UCF selected UTARI and UTD as its collaborators. Dr. Nick Gans, UTARI Principal Research Scientist and Division Head, Automation & Intelligent Systems, will lead the Research Institute on the project.
From the NSF award page website – “Numerous Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) research communities leverage datasets comprised of visual images or 3D virtual environments to conduct research in computer vision, robotics, multimedia systems, virtual reality, and mixed reality. Many of these datasets consist of either images previously captured with cameras and other optical sensors, or synthetic images previously rendered from 3D virtual environments. The static nature of these datasets limits their usefulness and potential applications. Recently, some researchers have provided datasets and tools for synthesizing new images from 3D virtual environments using customizable virtual camera positions, which broadens their research applications. However, many of these datasets consist of lower-fidelity indoor virtual environments that yield non-photorealistic images. Furthermore, such datasets are missing outdoor virtual environments, and tools for sharing custom camera positions within the research community are not currently available.”
This planning project prepares to address the limitations of prior datasets by investigating the feasibility of using high-quality terrestrial laser scanners to capture and create high-fidelity, photorealistic virtual environments of real-world locations, both indoor and outdoor. This will be coupled with surveys of the relevant CISE research communities through workshops held at top academic conferences. This project will result in the development of two preliminary datasets, one indoor and one outdoor, using the proposed laser-scanner methodology, and the identification of community needs, priorities, and support for the proposed InfraStructure for Photorealistic Images and Environment Synthesis (I-SPIES).
The project commenced October 1, 2021. More information can be found here.