I wouldn't knock the research. The results look impressive to me.
GIS won't want generative hallucinations.
Consumer mapping apps, social applications, and games (eg. flight sims) will want the maps to look as good as possible.
It would be amazing if they could also take user-generated photos and videos at ground level and accurate mapping data (that has building outlines) and clean that up to something presentable.
I mean, what they do here is what google and apple are already doing for years. It's time for the next step.
This is gaussian splatting. I'm pretty confident that google/apple have not done that.
These sort of projects always look cool but I think the real "wow factor" would be a file upload where you can see the result on your image. I assume there are reasons why this isn't done.
I suspect hybrid solutions will remove the limitations of GS, with (eventually...) some smooth hand off. Do clean-enough GS like this; then hand the output to other systems which covert into forms more useful for your application and which adopt e.g. textures from localized photos etc.
It's just a bit of engineering and compute...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/flight-box...
I knew their name because, when I worked for an Airbus subsidiary, we talked with them about a solution to generate 3D environments for any/every airport.
They had some cool stuff but also some wonky stuff at the time (like highway overpasses actually being rendered as walls across the highway).
p0w3n3d•5h ago
Y_Y•5h ago
In fact you wouldn't even need to be limited to earth. Why not throw in Google Moon and steal a moon buggy while shooting scientific rovers and doing cool flips out of craters?
iammjm•5h ago