Creating arbitrary 3D objects for PostGIS
Sources of 3D information are not only generated from LiDAR, nor are they purely synthesized from 2D geometries and associated attributes as in the Constructing and serving buildings 2.5D and Using ST_Extrude to extrude building footprints recipes, but they can also be created from the principles of computer vision as well. The process of calculating 3D information from the association of related keypoints between images is known as SfM.
As a computer vision concept, we can leverage SfM to generate 3D information in ways similar to how the human mind perceives the world in 3D, and further store and process that information in a PostGIS database.
Note
Computer vision is a discipline within computer science focused on automated analysis and inference from images and video. It is considered a research area that develops algorithms that interpret the world in a way that is similar to human vision. An excellent summary can be found at http://en.wikipedia...
