Paper: ISWC (2008) "Localization and 3D Reconstruction of Urban Scenes Using GPS"

Kihwan Kim, Jay Summet, Thad Starner, Daniel Ashbrook, Mrunal Kapade and Irfan Essa  (2008) “Localization and 3D Reconstruction of Urban Scenes Using GPS” In Proceedings of IEEE Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC) 2008 (To Appear). [PDF]

ABSTRACT

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.