Google selected and is funding a Project developed at the University of Coimbra by a group of researchers, some from IT.
The project is about 3D reconstruction of urban environment and is considered an advancement with respect to Google Street View. The latter is known to allow one to virtually visit a large number of cities in the world through a tridimensional perspective, but it has its constraints: these images are confined to the ones captured by a Google camera set on a car.
This team of researchers wanted to go further in detail, and are working on a system that builds accurate 3D cities models. According to the researchers, the innovation of this technology is the algorithm which is based on the “use of plans, not only to describe the scene but also to calculate the camera motion”. This allows very efficient representation and storing of data.
Google discovered this project in a worldwide contest of ideas, in which the team took part, and ended up selecting it for funding.