Title: Interactive In-Situ Scene Capture on Mobile Devices
Advisor: Steve Seitz
Supervisory Committee: Steve Seitz (Chair), Alex Anderson (GSR, Architecture), Brian Curless, and Michael Cohen
Abstract: Architectural visualizations of indoor scenes enable compelling applications in several areas, such as real estate, interior design, cultural heritage preservation, and more recently, immersive Virtual Reality. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools have been invaluable for creating such visualizations. However, creating detailed, attractive visualizations of scenes remains a challenging task, particularly for non-experts. User interfaces for CAD tools tend to be complex and require significant manual effort to operate. These tools are also designed to be used ex-situ, or off-site, making it difficult to record and reproduce details faithfully.
In this thesis, I propose novel techniques and systems for interactive in-situ scene capture on mobile devices, that lets non-expert users quickly and easily capture useful architectural visualizations of indoor scenes. These systems are built upon two key insights; 1) sensors on mobile devices can be leveraged to capture important aspects of the scene such as dimensions, room shape, furniture placement, etc., and 2) an in-situ user can assist in the modeling task by acting as a guide for reconstruction and object recognition algorithms. Based on these insights, the semi-automatic systems that I propose combine the strengths of the user, who is good at high-level semantic reasoning, and the computer, which excels at combinatorics and numerical optimization.
In this talk, I will present the design, implementation and evaluation of three systems for in-situ indoor scene capture on mobile devices.