A new dimension

October 2004

Urban planning methods could be totally revamped through an innovative project at the new Monash Institute for Vision Systems. Ingrid Sanders reports.

A cutting-edge research project at the Institute for Vision Systems Engineering at Monash University has the potential to totally overhaul town planning modelling methods - and could also play an important role in disaster planning.

Exciting prospects: Dr David Suter has high expectations for the research project. Photo: Melissa Di Ciero.

Institute director Associate Professor David Suter, who received $300,000 funding from the Monash Research Fund, has high expectations for the project, which he says will have a range of research and commercial applications when complete.

Dr Suter says the Urban Landscape Capture and Modelling project involves the use of video and laser technologies to capture whole buildings, streetscapes and city blocks to create a digital model.

"A company or government department planning to construct a new building could use this technology to see how the development would look when incorporated into a model built of the existing landscape," he says.

"It has exciting commercial prospects and is an area that only a few people in the world are researching."

One such person is postdoctoral researcher Dr Konrad Schindler, who worked on a similar project in Austria before joining the Monash team. And, like Dr Suter, he is passionate about its potential.

"This area of research is still only in its infancy but we are keen to develop the technology, which could be put to use in a number of practical ways," Dr Schindler says. "It has exciting commercial prospects, especially in the area of disaster planning."

To gain a 3D-image of an urban landscape, the team uses a number of images taken from different vantage points of a building or streetscape, which are then loaded into a computer. With the help of a specially formulated computer program devised by the team, a 3D-model is then generated from the computer.

The researchers have applied for funding to buy laser scanning equipment and, if successful, are confident the project will quickly gain momentum.

"With the help of laser equipment the whole process will be quicker and more reliable," Dr Suter says. "Ultimately, we would be able to feed a number of images into a computer, and a finished 3D-model would emerge."

And there are many other applications to which the research could be applied, Dr Suter says, particularly disaster and evacuation planning.

"Organisations could simulate a walk- or fly-through of an area, formulate a disaster plan or simulate crowd movements in any urban environment through the 3D-model on the screen," he says. "This means government and private enterprise could see the urban landscape as it appears in real life, rather than merely looking at a static image."

The institute, which is part of the Faculty of Engineering, was formed earlier this year and aims to foster research in the broad area of computer vision and the applications of such technologies.

Action
For more information, contact Associate Professor David Suter at the Institute for Vision Systems Engineering on +61 3 9905 5682 or email david.suter@eng.monash.edu.au.