planning the next steps

[Seth Teller <teller@lcs.mit.edu>]

bmg'ers,

here are several directions in which we can take BMG and
walkthrough next.  these ideas span the spectrum from well-
understood implementation issues to full research (i.e.,
things we don't yet know how to do).

summarizing, the directions [with suggested student teams
in brackets] are:

   o merge space-type and adjacency extraction into existing
     BMG pipeline to form single source for space/route data
     [michael, patrick]

   o merge spaces and adjacencies from basemap with interior
     info, to enable inter-building route generation.  note
     that this requires solving a naming problem for outdoor
     spaces.  [vitaly, patrick]

   o incorporate topo (height) information into whole-campus
     map to adjust terrain height and building floor placement.
     [vitaly, michael]

   o resuscitate "stairmaster" utility and generate interior
     vertical connectors (ramps, stairwells, chair lifts,
     elevators).  [michael, vitaly]

   o generate vertical connecting elements (ramps & stairwells)
     at building perimeters, i.e., to connect surroundings with
     entryways.  [vitaly, michael]

   o generate purely exterior vertical connectors (e.g., ramp
     and stairs at entrance to ames courtyard; stairs into
     medical center from eastern side).  [vitaly]

   o extend visibility compilation and query capability to
     whole campus case.  phase one:  existing algorithms,
     axial models, building rotations suppressed to produce
     axial geometry.  phase two:  new algorithms, with
     locally axial, globally non-axial geometry.  [peter]

   o incorporate metric texture samples (photographs of, say,
     one-meter square texture patches from campus surfaces)
     into generated model in a principled way.  note, this
     raises another hard naming/geo-location problem.
     [olivier, vitaly, michael]

   o resuscitate furnpop utility, and merge extracted space-type
     and furnpop invocation to furnish (most) interior spaces
     [students:  ?]

   o extend furnpop to populate exterior spaces, with trees,
     hydrants, benches, newspaper boxes, mailboxes, telephone
     poles and boxes, light posts, etc.  [students:  ?]

i'd like each of you to think about these and your own ideas
for next steps, your estimate of their scope/difficulty and ideas
for how we can pursue them, and your own involvement over the summer
and fall.  also, give some thought to a compelling app (perhaps
several) that we can deploy in the same period, to give the
rest of the community some understanding of what we're up to.

let's discuss at tomorrow's BMG meeting, T 415pm in the G lab
as usual.

prof. t.