The Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity (IARPA) will host a Proposers’ Day Conference for the CORE3D program on March 30, 2016, in anticipation of the release of a new solicitation in support of the program. The Conference will be held from 9:00AM to 5:00PM in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The purpose of the conference will be to provide information on the CORE3D program and the research problems the program aims to address, to address questions from potential proposers and to provide a forum for potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities.

This announcement serves as a pre-solicitation notice and is issued solely for information and planning purposes. The Proposers’ Day Conference does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals or proposal abstracts. Conference attendance is voluntary and is not required to propose to future solicitations (if any) associated with this program. IARPA will not provide reimbursement for any costs incurred to participate in this Proposers' Day.

Program Description and Goals

A persistent U.S. Government need - for global situational awareness as well as military, intelligence, and humanitarian mission planning - is timely access to geospatially accurate 3D object data. The aims of the CORE3D program are (a) physical modeling - fully automated methods for timely 3D model creation leveraging spectral, textural, and dimensional information from satellite data to yield models that are dimensionally true and accurately render textures, materials, and types of objects within the scene; and (b) functional modeling – fully automated methods for object recognition and scene understanding.

The manmade objects for physical modeling in the CORE3D program are invariant and relatively large in size. They may include buildings, roads, walls, bridges, towers, dams, or other static structures. Simplified 3D representation such as Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG), where 3D shapes are built from Boolean operations on simple shape primitives such as cubes, cylinders, or spheres, will be used to fit and store the geometry of 3D models. A core library of 3D shape primitives will be provided to all performers. Custom representations will be allowed within the constraints of each phase of the program, if pre-defined primitives cannot adequately represent object geometry with the fidelity required by each phase’s metrics.

The functional modeling of the CORE3D program is focused on wide area manmade object recognition and scene understanding. Proposed methods shall demonstrate that they can automatically recognize, tag, and update pre-defined object categories from satellite imagery. Similar to the targets of the physical models, the object categories for functional modeling shall consist of static structures such as communication towers, air fields, power plants, water towers, light houses, schools, and hospitals. Performer teams shall develop and exploit novel learning frameworks that are customized and optimized for satellite imagery and multi-modal data fusion. Hybrid approaches that do not rely on a single computer vision or learning modality are encouraged.

To meet the overall goal of the CORE3D program and its individual objectives, proposed methods shall address the technical challenges to include, but not limited to: (1) Multi-modal fusion to include satellite panchromatic, multispectral, point clouds, and maps; (2) Multi-level fusion to include data level, feature level, and decision level fusion; (3) Object level segmentation and classification; (4) Point cloud generation from multi-view satellite images; (5) Representations of complex scene geometry; (6) Accurate 3D model fitting/ statistical inferencing; (7) Novel deep learning (DL) framework optimized for satellite imagery scene recognition; and (8) Hybrid image understanding module using DL, traditional, and new innovative image understanding algorithms.

Collaborative efforts and teaming among potential performers are strongly encouraged. It is anticipated that teams will be multidisciplinary, including but not limited to expertise in disciplines such as computer vision, remote sensing, machine learning, geology, statistical inference, and photogrammetry.

Registration Information

Attendees must register no later than COB on March 23, 2016, at http://events.SignUp4.com/CORE3DProposersDay_Registration. Directions to the conference facility and other materials will be available on that website. No walk-in registrations will be allowed.

Due to space limitations, attendance will be limited to the first 150 registrants. If there are more registrants than available seats, priority will be given to the first two registrants from each organization. All attendees will be required to present a government-issued photo identification to enter the conference.

Additional Information

The unclassified morning session will include an overview of the program goals, technical challenges, and expected participation requirements. A description of how the solutions will be evaluated will be provided.

The afternoon will include unclassified presentation & poster sessions to provide an opportunity for attendees to present their organizations' capabilities and to explore teaming arrangements. Attendees who wish to present organization capabilities for teaming opportunities may submit a request through the registration web site. Details on the presentation and poster formats, and the procedure for submitting a request to present, will be provided after approval to register for the conference has been granted. Time available for presentations and posters will be limited. Therefore, presentations will be limited to the first 15 registered respondents who request an oral presentation, and posters will be limited to the first 15 registered respondents who request a poster presentation. These presentations are not intended to solicit feedback from the Government, and Government personnel will not be present during the presentations.

This Proposers' Day is intended for participants who are eligible to compete on the anticipated Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). Other Government Agencies, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs), or any other similar organizations that have a special relationship with the Government, that gives them access to privileged or proprietary information, or access to Government equipment or real property, will not be eligible to submit proposals to the anticipated BAA nor participate as team members under proposals submitted by eligible entities. While such entities are not prohibited from attending the Proposers' Day, due to space limitations, preference will be given first to those organizations that are eligible to compete. IARPA will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred to participate in this conference.

Questions concerning Conference and registration can be sent to dni-iarpa-events@iarpa.gov. Questions regarding the program can be sent to dni-iarpa-baa-16-06@iarpa.gov.

Contracting Office Address

Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity
Washington, DC 20511

Primary Point of Contact

Hakjae Kim
Program Manager
dni-iarpa-baa-16-06@iarpa.gov