PROJECTS

AI4CH was funded to realize a joint Italian-Israeli laboratory operating in the field of Artificial Intelligence applied to the Cultural Heritage. The project wants to deal with research activities related to intelligent extraction of information content from 2D/3D data collections and intelligent support to knowledge exploration.

AMICOS (Autonomous MonitorIng and COntrol System for mining plants) is a European project funded by the EIT Raw Materials. AMICOS supports the digital transformation of the RM industry by proposing an innovative end-to-end asset management solution, based on a Decision Support System and remotely sensed data, to increase the market penetration/adoption of digital technology in the mining sector. AMICOS provides a great opportunity to gain market share by exploiting emerging technologies (IoT, drones/UAVs, Artificial Intelligence, BIM, etc.) to reduce the costs for key operations and allow a safer working environment.

We explore supervised CNN architectures for monocular depth estimation and evaluated their potential in 3D reconstruction i photogrammetric scenarios and applications. Since most available datasets for training are not designed toward this goal and are limited to specific indoor scenarios, we also offer a new metric, large-scale synthetic benchmark (ArchDepth) renders near real-world scenarios of outdoor scenes (ca 24.000 images).

Automation in image orientation and dense point cloud reconstruction is reaching very high standards, but image quality is a fundamental pre-requisite to produce successful and photo-realistic 3D products. We investigate a productive pre-processing strategy, the various detector/descriptor operators for tie point extraction and dense matching algorithms to find out all open issues in the actual photogrammetric pipeline for 3D reconstruction purposes.

Classification and segmentation of 3D data has become a very active research field. Researchers are developing solutions to deliver enriched 3D information useful in many fields and applications. We are developing methodologies based on modern machine learning methods useful for urban modeling, heritage documentation, etc.

Various countries are digitizing their archives of aerial images as they are a unique and relatively unexplored means to analyze the territorial changes over the past 100 years with very high spatial resolution. This research activity wants to investigate the geo-processing of historical aerial images, including automatic geo-referencing, DSM generation, automatic detection of bomb craters, LULC maps generation, etc. The TIME benchmark was also realized in collaboration with EuroSDR.

The research activity investigate innovate optical metrology methods for manufacturing inspection, quality control and production monitoring. We focus on texture-less and non-collaborative surfaces, normally problematic for inspections based on optical methods.

The airborne market for area-wide 3D data acquisition is experiencing a noticeable trend towards a hybrid mapping concept. Indeed many airborne data collections are increasingly be performed by a combination of active and passive sensors. We investigate the latest developments in the field of airborne hybrid systems, including both data acquisition and processing.

JUDIT – Judicaria digitale e Interattiva - is an interdisciplinary project that wants to realize 3D contents and digital solutions to valorize and give remote access to heritage contents located in the Giudicarie and northern side of the Garda lake. The project wants to expand knowledge and accessibility of the heritage sites, stimulating curiosity and involving visitors with technological tools that combine fun, entertainment, philological reconstruction, education and learning. JUDIT is supported by Fondazione CARITRO.

The PERISCOPE (Portal for hERItage buildingS integration into the COntemPorary built Environment) project, funded by the Cyprus Research & Innovation Foundation, aims to realize an innovative BIM/HBIM platform for the identification, classification, documentation and renovation of heritage buildings. The project, lead by the Cyprus Institute, addresses specific needs and challenges identified by the stakeholders that have cultural and economic impact on Cyprus’ society, including public authorities and policy makers.

Multiple view stereo algorithms still have difficulties to reconstruct the depth in textureless areas. Semantic information is used to support the standard MVS reconstruction and generate more complete and accurate depth maps and 3D point clouds. The semantic labels are inherited from the labelled images to the 3D output.

If the field of photogrammetry has witnessed incremental technological developments in the last years, the field of airborne laser scanning is now seeing a potentially revolutionary change through the introduction of Single Photon LiDAR (SPL) and Geiger-Mode LiDAR technologies. SPL / Geiger-Mode arguably provide a more efficient approach to perform high-resolution 3D mapping. They offer higher efficiency with respect to traditional linear LiDAR and additional 3D mapping capability in terms of swath width, spatial resolution, acquisition time and density of range returns.

TARGET-CE is an Interreg-CE capitalization project which aims to collect, adjust and deploy ICT tools, financial models, thematic strategies, action plans and training material in the field of Energy Efficiency (EE) in order to offer innovative solution to local and regional administrations. This will be achieved capitalizing past technical & non-technical solutions combining downstreaming and upstreaming activities for increasing EE and renewable energy usage in public buildings.

TOTEM (4D Trento Time Machine) aims to research, development, test and disseminate of new visualization and analysis solutions, based on heterogeneous information (3D / 4D models, texts, photos, maps, etc.) in order to (i) improve historical knowledge about architectural and urban planning of Trento, (ii) carry out geospatial urban analyzes and (iii) exploit data collected in archives in the area. TOTEM is funded by Fondazione CARITRO.

UPDATE – fast aUtomatic insPection with 3D imAging and arTificial intElligence - is a metrology project, run in collaboration with EOPTIS and funded by Fondazione CARITRO. UPDATE aims to research, develop and demonstrate innovative solutions for quality control of industrial components. The inspection will be performed merging 3D imaging and Artificial Intelligence solutions and following international standards (VDI/VDE, ASTM, etc.).

The availability and reliability of VR/AR/MR solutions, including head-mounted displays and glasses, is allowing interesting immersive virtual experiences in many fields, from industry to heritage.

VOLTA – innoVation in geOspatiaL and 3D daTA - is an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie RISE which will develop, through secondments of staff members, training and networking activities, innovative solutions in the field of photogrammetry, data / sensor fusion, semantic segmentation and cloud computing for geospatial data. VOLTA has 13 partners and will run for 4 years.