5 ms·

This would be pretty handy for indoor mapping. Imagine a crowd-sourced 3d OSM for malls, public buildings, office-plans ect. That would be massively useful.

• bigiain 7y ago
  Serious question. What are some examples you're thinking about of "massively useful" applications of this? I think it's a really cute tech demo, but I'm struggling to find obvious uses that'd make the world a better place or generate huge piles of cash.
  • gpsx 7y ago
    I can think of something massively useful for technology like this when it gets a little (lot) better, and considering using many cameras such as from robots - a real time map of the world. You would know where everybody is and where they have been. I admit I don't know what best to do with this. A government certainly would want it. At a minimum it would be much more valuable for advertising than your internet history.
    • bigiain 7y ago
      So you've hit on a few "definitely makes thew world a worse place" ideas... Also, I don't think any of your explanations require - and they'd possibly be made _worse_ by doing the 3d reconstruction/calculations. There's no benefit for surveillance (that I can see) from reconstructing the 3D geometry. Your (arguably evil) applications just require high enough resolution (in 2D) to run accurate-as-available face recognition.
      • gpsx 7y ago
        I agree this is scary. I should also say this is about more than just spying on people, and some of the uses, probably the less impactful ones, are not evil. There is a lot you could do with a real time model of the world. Like I said, I haven't thought of the best uses for it.
        • bigiain 7y ago
          That's where I ended up - this is a fascinating solution looking for a problem. I love the idea. I'm not convinced there's "massive useful use cases" for it.
  • scanny 7y ago
    Fair point, for me 'massively' would be an significant amount of time / confusion saved. Whenever I want to go catch a bus at an overseas metro station, try find a shop in a unfamiliar mall, or even try find where a clients desk is in an unfamiliar building, that would be fantastic. The a potential to generate a snapshot of a space indoors would be super handy. Maybe even for places without an address you could look at a timestamped point cloud like that and see which building to go to. Democratizing capturing 3d space in a simple/user-friendly and cheap way would open up really interesting doors.
    • bigiain 7y ago
      Streetview type imagery/navigation solves that problem though, right? There's no need for the depth map/3d reconstruction going on here? Just a "walk through" with a 360degree camera (or multiple overlapping cameras) capturing 2D lets you find the shop or the desk.
      • scanny 7y ago
        Potentially, but I am sure you find use from zooming around in 3d before going into streetview and taking a closer look, as being able to look on from up is a useful perspective. At least I can find streetview disorienting at times. Maybe it just comes down to personal preference. But having a finer scale of 3d, another level in google maps for example, seems like a logical next step.
  • seamyb88 7y ago
    Fortnite. In your bathroom.
  • scanny 7y ago
    Oh I forgot to add that this would be amazing for disaster relief and Search and Rescue. Imagine sending in a little robot for rescue that also maps out in 3d the interior of a collapsed building!