How AI Empowers 3D Building Scanning for Metaverse Integration

3D building scanning plays an important role in making the metaverse more realistic and engaging — and with AI, 3D scanning can improve in both accuracy and speed. Here’s how AI opens up the potential of 3D scanning for the metaverse.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Zachary Amos – “How AI Empowers 3D Building Scanning for Metaverse Integration”

The metaverse is still in its early stages but has immense potential. As it grows, businesses look for ways to make it more engaging and realistic to draw users in and make its commercial uses more practical. 3D building scanning plays an important role in that shift.

3D Building Scanning’s Role in the Metaverse

3D building scanning is the process of creating a true-to-life 3D digital model of a real-world structure. Typically, that means taking pictures from all angles or using LIDAR to gather laser measurements, then plugging this data into software that translates it into a virtual model. The resulting product is a digital building that looks and acts exactly like the real one.

This scanning is important in the metaverse because it lets companies create virtual versions of their real-world facilities. Construction teams could visit buildings in the metaverse to inspect a project virtually when they’d have to fly thousands of miles to see it in the real world. Retailers could let customers shop in metaverse versions of their stores that feel just like the brick-and-mortar ones, bringing the experience of in-person shopping to e-commerce.

One-third of businesses invest 10%-20% of their marketing and innovation budgets in the metaverse. Those figures will only increase as it grows. Making virtual spaces more engaging and reflective of real-world alternatives is crucial, so 3D building scanning is becoming increasingly important.

How AI Takes 3D Scanning Further

Artificial intelligence (AI) will also grow as more businesses use 3D building scanning to create more immersive metaverse experiences. That’s because AI improves 3D scanning in two crucial areas: accuracy and speed.

Improving Scan Accuracy

AI’s accuracy is one of its biggest advantages for 3D scanning. Laser scanning has largely replaced manual measurements that are often inaccurate, leading to costly mistakes, and AI takes lasers’ accuracy further.

3D building scanning software must combine overlapping pictures and measurements to create a true-to-life digital twin. However, many factors can make this process difficult — from poor lighting to objects getting in the way of the cameras to angles that normal software can’t make sense of. AI can recognize and account for these inaccuracies and missing data points, providing a more complete and reliable picture.

AI software can analyze multiple angles and measurements to fill in the blanks where there are gaps in the scan data. It can also notice when things don’t add up and adjust 3D models accordingly or alert users to the issue. These fixes ensure that 3D scans accurately reflect the real world, making digital twins more useful and engaging.

Enabling Real-Time Voxelization

AI also makes the process of turning real-world measurements into metaverse models faster. The same generative AI models that 67% of businesses are now prioritizing can produce 3D versions almost instantly when it would take a human hours of work.

Scanning AI can go even further by enabling real-time voxelization. This process turns data from devices into voxels — the 3D versions of pixels — as soon as it comes in. AI can do a lot more at once than conventional software. That allows it to process incoming information and instantly balance voxel lighting, resolution, reflections, shadows, orientation and more.

Real-time voxelization creates a 3D model of a building as companies scan the real-world one. As a result, there’s no processing or waiting time between scanning and model creation. That speed makes it easier and more cost-effective for businesses to put digital twins of actual buildings in the metaverse.

AI-Powered 3D Scanning Opens the Metaverse’s Potential

Metaverse versions of real-world buildings have massive potential for consumers and businesses. Individuals can visit famous landmarks from the comfort of their homes, and companies can enable easier collaboration among international teams. New use cases and possibilities will emerge as more organizations use them.

These innovations are only feasible with AI. It provides the speed and accuracy 3D scanning needs to make digital twins a viable option. In that way, AI is a stepping stone to a more practical and engaging metaverse.

About the Author:

Zachary Amos is the Features Editor at ReHack, where he writes about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other technology-related topics.