Alphabet’s DeepMind Makes a Key Advance in Computer Vision | AI

Researchers at Alphabet’s DeepMind today described a method that they say can construct a three-dimensional layout from just a handful of two-dimensional snapshots.

So far the method, based on deep neural networks, has been confined to virtual environments, they write in Science magazine. Natural environments are still too hard for current algorithms and hardware to handle.

The article doesn’t speculate on commercial applications, and the authors weren’t available for interview. That gives me license to speculate: The new method might be useful for any surveillance system that has to reconstruct a crime from a few snapshots. Self-driving cars and household robots would also seem likely beneficiaries of the technique.