Ask HN: Augmented reality startup idea: see inside walls

[dzdt]

A startup to gather and provide access to details of hidden infrastructure underground and inside of the walls of buildings.

The startup would produce a data capture device, consisting of a lidar survey instrument paired with one or more high resolution cameras. It would also produce augmented reality apps for handheld, eye-glass, and heavy-equipment-mounted heads up display.

It would partner with construction firms which build large structures or repair in-ground infrastructure. Possibly also with city inspection offices. The partners would be supplied with data capture devices to record the detailed position of infrastructure elements in an uncovered state.

The AR apps would allow later users to see under the surface of streets and inside walls at later phases of construction or repair. So when you dig back up a street, the backhoe operator can see where the water lines are under the ground on his AR display; when you to reconfigure interior space in a skyscraper you can look inside the walls of the existing construction, etc.

The business model would be to try to build up data as quickly as possible. Whoever scales such a business first may own the space. Make data collection devices and acceess to their own data free to large partners; sell subscription access to data recorded by someone other than the partner.

Critique?

[itamarst]

You shouldn't be talking to people on Hacker News. You should be talking to construction firms, inspectors, etc..

[vitovito → itamarst]

This, especially because you're solutioneering without an understanding of how this work currently happens.

Or, more specifically, why it doesn't happen. A recent popular press article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-10/nobody-kn...

Underground? If the actual city can't get the data, how will you?

Inside walls? It's cheap and easy to make a hole and look, to make a lot of holes and look, tear down a whole wall and look. Manual labor is cheap.

Building the data up would be great if you had all the manual labor necessary to do it, but based on the Bloomberg article you'd never legally get access to the most vital spaces in order to compile it fresh for yourself (since the data already exists elsewhere, it's just that most people can't get it).

And then it's just as likely the cities wouldn't let you sell it to anyone or use it in anyway for security reasons, just like the utility companies are telling the city.

[billconan]

how do you do indoor localization? I think it’s difficult.

[dzdt → billconan]

I think its much easier in a space where you already have a precisely measured framework.

Disclaimer: I haven't prototyped this.

I think with a good enough continuous camera movement you can track from a zoomed out or slow-pan view that takes in multiple registration points (e.g. room corners) to a zoomed in view of a detail of interest keeping track of corresponding details. That lets you map back from the zoomed out view where you could correspond to the recorded data by the visual registration points.