Peter K. Allen
                      Department of Computer Science
                           Columbia University
                               New York, NY


                   Automating the 3D Modeling Pipeline


The advent of fast and accurate laser range scanning has brought the
promise of automatic creation of 3D models.  However, there is much
manual effort required to move from a 3D point cloud to a complete,
texture-mapped model.  At the Columbia Robotics Laboratory, we have
been developing methods that are aimed at automating many parts of the
3D modeling pipeline, including range-range registration and
range-image registration.  Our pipeline is being used to assist art
historians and archaeologists in building rich, geometrically and
photometrically accurate 3D models of large-scale sites. The modeling
effort begins with data acquisition (images, range scans, GIS data,
and video) and ends with the use of a sophisticated visualization tool
that can be used by researchers to explore and understand the site.
We present results from modeling historic and archaeological sites in
New York, France, Sicily and South Africa.

Biosketch:
Peter K. Allen is a Professor of Computer Science at Columbia
University.  He received the A.B. degree from Brown University in
Mathematics-Economics, the M.S. in Computer Science from the
University of Oregon and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from the
University of Pennsylvania, where he was the recipient of the CBS
Foundation Fellowship, Army Research Office fellowship and the
Rubinoff Award for innovative uses of computers.  His current research
interests include real-time computer vision, dextrous robotic hands,
3-D modeling and medical robotics.  In recognition of his work,
Professor Allen has been named a Presidential Young Investigator by
the National Science Foundation


                        Thursday, November 11, 2004
                     JEC 3117 - 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
                          Refreshments at 3:30 p.m.