(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008)
Kim, Kihwan; Summet, Jay; Starner, Thad; Ashbrook, Daniel; Kapade, Mrunal; Essa, Irfan
Using off-the-shelf Global Positioning System (GPS)
units, we reconstruct buildings in 3D by exploiting the reduction
in signal to noise ratio (SNR) that occurs when
the buildings obstruct the line-of-sight between the moving
units and the orbiting satellites. We measure the size and
height of skyscrapers as well as automatically constructing
a density map representing the location of multiple buildings
in an urban landscape. If deployed on a large scale, via
a cellular service provider’s GPS-enabled mobile phones or
GPS-tracked delivery vehicles, the system could provide an
inexpensive means of continuously creating and updating
3D maps of urban environments.