IARPA Launches “CORE3D” Program to Build Accurate 3-D Models from Satellite Imagery

Source: United States Director of National Intelligence

Headline: IARPA Launches “CORE3D” Program to Build Accurate 3-D Models from Satellite Imagery

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ODNI News Release No. 8-18
February 12, 2018

IARPA Launches “CORE3D” Program to Build Accurate 3-D Models from Satellite Imagery

WASHINGTON – The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, announces today that it has established a multi-year research plan to build 3-D models that leverage satellite imagery in order to support our nation’s military, humanitarian and intelligence missions. The Creation of Operationally Realistic 3-D Environment —“CORE3D”—program will revolutionize the way we build 3-D models by cutting down the amount of time it takes to build them to a fraction of the time, compared to current methods.

“Automated methods lag behind manual approaches for creating 3-D models with respect to extracting mission relevant information and understanding scenes,” said CORE3D program manager Hakjae Kim. “While manually constructed models are accurate and reliable, the process to create them is time-consuming and does not satisfy the need for models to support rapid response to military or humanitarian crises in areas where up-to-date models do not exist.”

The CORE3D program aims to develop rapid automated systems for 3-D models which are designed with complex physical properties and automated methods that will pull commercial, satellite, and airborne imagery.

Through a competitive Broad Agency Announcement, IARPA has awarded research contracts in support of the CORE3D program to teams led by Applied Research Associates, General Electric, Kitware and Vision Systems, Inc.

IARPA invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs to tackle some of the most difficult challenges of the agencies and disciplines in the Intelligence Community. Additional information on IARPA and its research may be found on  www.iarpa.gov.