3D - Amsterdam from CycloMedia on Vimeo.
With laser-scanners and cameras mounted on cars and/or drones, it is possible to reconstruct automatically and quickly a 3D textured mesh of a city, such as that above from Amsterdam, created by CycloMedia. While such models admittedly look great, in practice they cannot be used in several applications because the urban features (eg buildings, trees, bridges, etc.) are not available, we only have one gigantic mesh of triangles with textures.
The aim of the project is to develop new algorithms to automatically identify urban features in the mesh, and to construct a representation of these that is useful for different applications. One requirement is the “straightening” of some man-made features (eg walls in buildings) so that they are less noisy/bumpy, and another is that these objects should be semantically enriched by taking attributes/semantics coming from other (2D) datasets of the area. The project includes a theoretical part (design of algorithms) and a development part where a prototype will be built and tested with real-world datasets of different countries.
The PhD position is funded by the Dutch company CycloMedia and by an EU research project involving several companies. The urban features will be used to support traffic, lighting, and safety applications. We expect the PhD student to collaborate with the staff at CycloMedia and other partners of the project.
The project will take place in the 3D geoinformation group at TU Delft, and the PhD student will also have to work with the staff of CycloMedia (about 1-2 days/week, at their offices in Zaltbommel, the Netherlands). The supervisor will be Prof. Jantien Stoter and Dr Hugo Ledoux, and one from CycloMedia.
The planned start date is during the summer 2017.
The 3D geoinformation research group, part of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, focuses on the technologies underpinning geographical information systems (GIS), and aims at designing, developing and implementing better systems to model 3D cities, buildings and landscapes. It is a multidisciplinary group of about 20 people, including computer scientists, geomatics engineers, and geographers. It has a history of successful collaborations with the industry and the government: its research has led to software, standards and patents for the management of 3D geographic information.
At the Delft University of Technology, a PhD student is a full-time employee of the university who gets paid a salary, no extra funding is necessary. The gross salary is €2,191 per month for the 1st year, going up to €2,801 during the 4th year. TU Delft also offers an attractive benefits package, including a flexible work week and the option of assembling a customised compensation and benefits package. An International Children’s Centre offers childcare and an international primary school. Dual Career Services offers support to accompanying partners. Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.
More information about doing a PhD at TU Delft and in the Netherlands can be found here and there.
Applicants should hold an MSc degree (or almost completed) in computer science, geoinformatics/geomatics, applied mathematics, or in a related discipline. They are expected to have good programming skills (C++ will be used), a good command of English (oral and written) and strong interest in 3D modelling and/or computational geometry.
To apply, please submit:
Please email your application material to Caro Coemans (hr-bk@tudelft.nl) and refer to vacancy number BK2017/07.
For more information about this position, please contact directly Dr Hugo Ledoux (h.ledoux@tudelft.nl).