Brent Gelhar, former Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Optech provided this link to a thought provoking article about the need to build up a 3D library of well – the world. It reminds me somewhat of my remote sensing days where the promise of automated material identification using hyperspectral cameras required an existing library of spectral signatures.
The big difference in this case is we are talking 3D geometry not spectral signatures, which are subject to much more variation as well as the mixed pixel problem. I think this is a lot more doable. I am not sure who would be the repository for all of this 3D data, but it would certainly generate a tremendous interest in scanning, or 3D camera systems. The latter could be a much lower cost solution and empower a lot more people to provide data.
