Automated system quickly creates 3D computer models

Urban planners, architects and filmmakers could all benefit from new technology developed by a research team led by Waterloo Engineering.

The automated system can generate 3D computer models of buildings or entire cities using only 2D aerial photographs, a much cheaper, faster way than relying on specially trained 3D artists and computer graphics programs.

“Think about all the time and labour involved in manually creating a digital 3D model of New York City for a new Spiderman movie,” said Kyle Gao, a PhD student in systems design engineering.

“With our system, it can be done using a few hundred aerial images – satellite images from Google Earth, for example – to train the model for a couple of hours in an automated process.”

Gao is supervised by Dr. Jonathan Li, a cross-appointed professor of systems design engineering, and geography and environmental management, and the director of the Geospatial Intelligence and Mapping (GIM) Lab at Waterloo.

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