Washington, D.C. – The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, announced that today marks the launch of the Multi-View Stereo 3D Mapping Challenge. The challenge aims to foster a community of participants that will produce a solution to accurately produce 3D mapping from satellite photos.

“Numerous commercial satellites, including newly emerging CubeSats, cover large areas with higher revisit rates and deliver high-quality imagery in near real-time to customers. Although the entire Earth has been, and continues to be, imaged multiple times, fully automated data exploitation remains limited,” – HakJae Kim, IARPA Program Manager

As such, the Multi-View Stereo 3D Mapping Challenge aims to:

• Promote and benchmark research in multiple view stereo algorithms applied to satellite imagery
• Stimulate various communities to develop and enhance automated methods to derive accurate 3D point clouds from multi-view satellite imagery, including computer vision, remote sensing and photogrammetry
• Foster innovation through crowdsourcing and moving beyond current research limitations for 3D point clouds
• Cultivate and sustain an ongoing collaborative community dedicated to this technology and research

IARPA is conducting this challenge to invite the broader research community of industry and academia, with or without experience in multi-view satellite imagery, to participate in a convenient, efficient and non-contractual way. IARPA’s use of a crowdsourcing approach to stimulate breakthroughs in science and technology also supports the White House’s Strategy for American Innovation, as well as government transparency and efficiency.

The Challenge will officially run through September 2016. Solvers will generate an algorithm to convert high-resolution satellite images to 3D point clouds. Throughout the Challenge, an online leaderboard will display solvers’ rankings and accomplishments, giving them various opportunities to have their work viewed and appreciated by stakeholders from industry, government and academic communities. Solvers with the most accurate and complete solutions will be eligible to win cash prizes from a total prize purse of $100,000.

To learn more about the Multi-View Stereo 3D Mapping Challenge, including rules, criteria and eligibility requirements, visit https://www.iarpa.gov/challenges/3dchallenge.html. To become a Solver, register today at http://www.topcoder.com. For updates, follow @IARPAnews on Twitter and join the conversation using #IARPA3DChallenge. For questions, contact us via email at [email protected].

About IARPA

IARPA invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs that have the potential to provide our nation with an overwhelming intelligence advantage. Additional information on IARPA and its research may be found on https://www.iarpa.gov.