‘Spatial AI’ is an emerging and amorphous field, only defined by a broad brush stroke of the range of fields it encompasses. At its heart, it’s the smashing together of other fields that are growing at a massive rate, and there are an increasing number of people – just like you and me – who are pretty sure that we want to stay on the leading edge of this particular wave.
Welcome to the 2024 Edition of 101 Resources for learning Spatial AI. By me saying that, I’ve now committed to doing this all again next year – but in the meantime, if I’ve made any errors or huge omissions, let me know and I’ll do my best to update the original source at this permalink: https://spaiti.al/insights/101-resources-for-learning-spatial-ai/
Quick-links to Sections:
- People to Follow on LinkedIn
- Companies to Follow
- News, Blogs & Articles
- Video Channels
- Forums and Communities
- Software and Tools to Learn
- Podcasts
- Books to read
- Non-technical/general advice
People to Follow on LinkedIn
1. Alan Smithson
Alan is a Co-Founder of MetaVRse, a low-code platform that makes it easy to create & share interactive 3D experiences instantly on the web. Alan is also an independent global advisor on the Metaverse for SXSW, Fortune 500 Companies and UHNW Family Offices.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alansmithson/
2. Michal Gula
I love 3D, “because 2D is against my religion”. My professional life is like a superhero, I too have two lives: I am a Reality Capture Pro by day / I am a 3D evangelist, storyteller, and content creator by night.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michalgula/
3. Jeremy Dalton
Head of Immersive Technologies at PwC US. Author, Speaker, Advisor, Chartered Accountant (shhhh).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremydalton/
4. Jonathan Stevens
Chief Evangelist & Developer Advocate @ EveryPoint, NeRF and GaSP Leading Light.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanstephens/
5. Dr Florent Poux
Point cloud analytics, courses and insights. Author and tutor of the 3D Object Detection online course at the 3d Data Academy.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/florent-poux-point-cloud/
6. Prof Marek Kowalkiewicz
Professor and Chair in Digital Economy, Marek is a thought leader in the practical use of disruptive AI for good… and less about the evil. His soon-to-be-released book, “The Economy of Algorithms”, makes an entry later in this guide.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marekkowal/
7. Helena Merschdorf
How do you tell the right stories to communicate your geospatial skills to your customers? You follow Helena, that’s what you do.
Fractional Marketing for Bold Geospatial Brands | 🎙️Storydriven Marketing Podcast | 8+ Years of Marketing in the Geospatial Industry | Co-Founder of Tales Consulting – A Dedicated Geospatial Marketing Agency
https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenamerschdorf/
8. Michael Milford
How many conferences a year can you go to? Ask Michael – or, better yet: follow him and live vicariously through him…! Michael’s bio is: “Perception and Positioning for Robots & Autonomous Vehicles, ARC Laureate Fellow, Director QUT Centre for Robotics, Professor, Microsoft Fellow, ATSE Fellow, Expert Speaker.” Agree. Connect, immediately.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljmilford/
9. Allie Miller
Not only #1 Most Followed Voice in AI Business, Leading AI Entrepreneur & Advisor, former Amazon & IBM – but Allie’s clear and straight-to-the-point insights into why you should be doing more than ‘exploring’ AI tools makes you rethink your entire life. Need inspiring? Follow!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alliekmiller/
10. Linda Stevens
Advisor | Geospatial | GeoAI | CMO | Problem Solver | Former Esri executive | Earth Champion | GIS OG. Also the leader of the Geospatial Innovations Group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12922286/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindacstevens/
11. Alessandro Ferrari
Founder, CEO @ARGO Vision, Professor @UniPV, Computer Vision/AI/VR legend – and all-round snappy dresser.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/visionarynet/
12. Bilawal Sidhu
AI creator blending realities 🌎 Tech, art & product. Ex-Google Maps & AR/VR. 1.4M+ subs & 360M+ views. Angel Investor / Scout @ A16Z . TED Speaker.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bilawalsidhu/
13. Milan Janosov
🌏 Founder @Geospatial Data Consulting | 🖥️ Data Scientist | 🎯 PhD in Network Science | 📖 Author | 🎖️ Forbes 30u30. (which reminds me that I really need to up my icons-in-my-linkedin-bio game)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/milan-janosov/
14. Arkadiusz (Arek) Szadkowski
🧭 Shaping and Influencing the Reality Capture, Reality Mapping, Imagery, and Remote sensing sectors.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkadiuszszadkowski/
15. Andrew Ballard (AB)
Sadly, *no* icons in my LinkedIn Bio, but as a translator of concepts, and a communicator of emerging technologies, follow me to help make sense of this emerging field of Spatial AI – through the podcast, via regular news items and insights, or through joining me on the SPAITIAL Discord sever. And if you’re near Melbourne Australia – always happy to meet up for coffee and talk about the not-too-distant future…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewballard/
Companies to Follow
16. OpenAI
Take a look at OpenAI’s back-catalog of research over the years, and you’ll soon know why they’re one of the top organisations to follow. From Emergent Tool Use (playing 500 million games of hide’n’seek) to Image-based GPT, through to becoming the powerhouse of LLMs — and surprising the world with jaw-dropping text-to-video, OpenAI is the company to keep track of. Plus, their research blogs are wonders of design and communication – it’s almost as though they weren’t afraid of giving away their secrets – they’re that far in front…
https://openai.com/research/overview
17. ESRI / ArcGIS Online
The powerhouse of the geospatial industry, they are quite literally synonymous/interchangeable with the term ‘GIS’: it’s like a Biro, a Hoover, a Kleenex or Photoshopping an image – talk about ESRI (the company) or ArcGIS (the desktop/online/server) and people instantly know what field you’re in: geospatial analytics.
https://www.esri.com/en-us/home
18. Spatial Pixel
The home of both Violet and William from SPAITIAL – and their growing stable of AI research and design projects, Spatial Pixel is an AI research and design studio focused on empowering people with digital and spatial agency. Violet Whitney and William Martin are both design researchers, technologists, and professors working out of Philadelphia, PA and New York City, NY. (Isamu FTW, though)
19. Cesium
The Platform for 3D Geospatial, and I can’t disagree. The inventor of the 3D tiles format, and the best way to combine your 3D objects with streaming terrain tiles. As a bonus, it plays nicely with both Unreal and Unity, and has both cloud hosted options, locally hosted options via Javascript – and embeddable maps into your native Apps.
20. Mapbox
If Cesium is the Platform for 3D Geospatial *raster* maps and analytics, then I’d call MapBox the Platform for 2D & 3D *vector* analytics… Vector tiles are smaller, more accurate and far more readily styled as raster maps, and they also lead into different analytics opportunities – such as embeddable navigation and route-planning. Well worth getting your hands dirty, as the whole vector world opens up as more ‘purist’ starting point for spatial data science than dots and pixels.
21. Felt
The new kids on the online mapping framework stage, Felt says it is “Powerful enough for GIS Pros, easy enough for everyone else”. Looks like a combination of the above two ‘old hands’ of online mapping, but with far more emphasis on ease-of-entry / then more ability to help with analytics use cases given that easier first step.
22. Planet.com
Need up-to-the-hour low-earth observation data? True geospatial intelligence? Before Planet, you’d have to either be a nation-state, or have a handy couple of hundred million to launch your own satellite. Those days ore over – it’s an online repository of daily satellite imagery – at your fingertips. [Credit card still required, though]
23. Synspective
Recognised for its contributions to the geospatial field, Synspective specialises in utilising synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to offer solutions for land displacement monitoring, flood damage assessment, and more, aiming to solve real-world problems through advanced satellite technology
24. Unreal / Unity
Controversial, sure, but I’m putting these two juggernauts of the 3D/gaming/XR development frameworks into the same bucket… I know, I know! They’re both huge, have a massive fanbase and community around them – and both are highly tribal in that you either belong to Team Unreal or Team Unity, with not many having ‘no preference’ for one or the other. Unreal may be taking some technical advantages lately with v5, and Unity may have done a disservice to its freemium model in recent months – but both are strong contenders for learning the ropes of 3D development and open world building.
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US / https://unity.com/
25. Spatial.ai
Geosocial & location intelligence: “Know your best customers and reach them faster. Enhance marketing performance and location decisions with Spatial.ai’s modern customer segmentation systems.”
26. LiveEO
Honored in the 2024 Global Top 100 Geospatial Companies, LiveEO utilizes satellite technology to transform complex data into actionable insights, focusing on vegetation management, third-party activity detection, and rapid disaster response among others.
News, Blogs & Articles
27. Medium.com
Start with tags such as spatial-computing or geospatial. Sign up for an annual subscription to get the most out of reading the long-form articles and insights.
28. Towards Data Science
A self-contained magazine within the Medium.com world, Towards Data Science is the announcement channel for new and groundbreaking AI/ML & Data Science products. Make sure you sign up for a Medium subscription to keep on the front of this news feed.
https://towardsdatascience.com/
29. Our own Violet Whitney on Medium
Violet is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP where she teaches tangible and spatial computing courses. She teaches physical computing and product design courses in University of Michigan’s Urban Technology program and the University of Pennsylvania’s Integrated Product Design program. Her research explores the spatial, social, and tangible potential of digital connectivity, providing an alternative to the individualist and de-contextualized nature of the dominant product design discourse. Hear her on the SPAITIAL podcast, every week.
https://medium.com/@violet.whitney
30. Strike-dip – Geological visualizations & graphic art
Less ‘reading’, more ‘jaw-dropping-artwork’ on display here from Lina Jakaite, a geologist and 3D artist.
https://strike-dip.com or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linajakait%C4%97/
Video Channels
31. Two Minute Papers
What a time to be alive! Oh yes – everybody needs to follow Dr Károly Zsolnai-Fehér’s epic series of new sand summaries of the latest and greatest advances in Computer Vision & Machine Learning, if only to get *half* as excited about the latest news as he does : ) A must-follow.
32. Introduction to Spatial AI: Yao-Yi Chiang, University of Minnesota
This course aims to explore the foundation and the state-of-the-art on 1) spatial data management and 2) machine learning & data mining technologies that can exploit the unique spatial data properties to solve real-world problems. The first theme explores current ways to store and manage spatial data, including topics in spatial databases, spatial Big Data platforms, and/or knowledge graphs & ontology. The second theme looks into how machine learning & data mining technologies solve real-world problems utilizing the unique spatial data properties, including topics in computer vision, location time-series data prediction & forecasting, and optionally natural language processing.
A brilliant one-hour primer on a range of Spatial AI topics, with all course guides and tutorials: https://yaoyichi.github.io/spatial-ai.html
33. Our own Mirek Burkon: Human-Robot Teaming in Augmented Reality
Mirek unveils Phantom Cybernetics, his platform for commanding & controlling multiple robots and machines using his AR-based OS.
34. Andrew Price / Blender Guru
Need to get into 3D modelling and 3D rendering concepts? Andrew Price is the proverbial go-to when you need to get up to speed with the latest Blender tips, tricks and concepts. You’ll even make your own doughnuts. I made some, many years ago – and now, so will you. It’s a rite of passage!
https://www.youtube.com/@blenderguru
35. MIT Spark Lab – Playlist: “Spatial AI and scene understanding”
A series of 13 videos, covering topics ranging from semantic perception, through to hands-on tutorials for semantic SLAM.
36. Robotics Today – “From SLAM to Spatial AI” by Andrew Davison
“To enable the next generation of smart robots and devices which can truly interact with their environments, Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) will progressively develop into a general real-time geometric and semantic `Spatial AI’ perception capability. I will give many examples from our work on gradually increasing visual SLAM capability over the years. However, much research must still be done to achieve true Spatial AI performance.”
37. Spatial Creator Toolkit (powered by Unity) – Getting Started
In this video, Jake – Spatial’s Head of Community, walks you through how to get all set up, including downloading and installing Unity, reviewing the sample scenes included with the Start Template, and publishing your first project.
38. Mark McLean: 3D inversion modelling of Airborne Gravity Data over Victoria’s Otway Basin
Mapping a large portion of Victoria’s underground coastline, here Mark explains the methodology and science behind the 3D inversion process, to uncover the different geology in and around the Great Ocean Road.
39. ESRI ArcGIS Training Series
Got time for 77 videos on all aspects of the latest version of ESRI ArcGIS? No? Step 1: Grab coffee. Step 2: Find a comfy chair. Step 3: Profit.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGZUzt4E4O2LDQ9IkXRKVEkfUb3j7VPGr
40. Complete QGIS Video Training Series
Follow Matt as he takes you through the world of QGIS – the open-source and completely awesome open-source (yes, free!) alternative to ESRI’s ArcGIS. You seriously can’t complain about the value for money…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SovdBaus7pM
41. OpenCV Spatial AI Contest 2022 – Playlist of Top 10
- Competition details and winners here: https://opencv.org/opencv-spatial-ai-contest/
- Followup 2023 competition playlist here: Spatial AI for Recycling
42. Spatial Data Management – Full 15 Week/38 Video Course from University of Tennessee
Accompanied by a course web site/resources at: https://sites.google.com/utk.edu/geog-414
43. Scott Pezanowski – GeoAI in the public health domain
SPAITIAL’s first guest interview, follow Scott as he begins his foray into sharing and teaching about ‘GeoAI’ – his unique blend of insights and analytics around Geospatial AI for Public Health.
https://www.youtube.com/@scottpezanowski4673/videos
44. Geo-python Online Courses from the University of Helsinki
This channel hosts videos associated with the Geo-Python course at the University of Helsinki in Finland. You can find all of the course learning materials online at https://geo-python.github.io.
https://www.youtube.com/@geo-python3329
45. Python Tutorial: GeoPy and GeoPandas
This tutorial shows you how to use the GeoPy and GeoPandas to geocode addresses from a spreadsheet and create a shapefile. Working with an Excel sheet containing addresses of Hurricane Evacuation Centers in New York City, to geocode these addresses and display the locations on a map.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6itC6hbOvo
Forums and Communities
46. Huggingface
The world’s open-source model zoo – the place to both download over 400,000 AI/ML models / play with any of those models in real time / train on over 100,000 datasets / and publish back to Huggingface when you’ve made something epic, for others to play with. This is ‘the giants’ part of the phrase ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.
47. Paperswithcode
It *literally* does what it says: it’s only academic papers that have freely available code attached to those papers – in Australia, we call that a ‘twofer” – a two for one. This dramatically downselects your research into only those papers that are immediately usable and repeatable by you – and to top it all off, it has one of the deepest and most details heirarchy of fields and subfields for you to explore.
48. GeoAwesomeness
Love this one – a true community for geospatial professional and developers alike. Complete with an Events Calendar, their own Podcast and Video Recommendations – and a Job Board…!
49. Reddit r/augmentedreality and r/computervision
Still the front page of the internet – and still a noisy and vibrant place to dive into Subreddits and get lost in both a) awesome insightful conversations, but also b) flame wars and more memes per square mile than is good for the soul. Go explore / carve your own niche… or just lurk, like the rest of us do.
https://www.reddit.com/r/computervision/
50. Stack Exchange
Oh my – I still remember the day that StackOverflow was down for, like… 30 minutes? It was as if millions of Developers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced… No more! What a great resource: got a specific question on an arcane code or theoretical topic? StackOverflow has a SubStack for that.
https://gis.stackexchange.com/ or https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/ or any other SubStacks
51. 3D Data Academy
Learn 3D Data Processing Skills: 3D Online Courses for Creators, Engineers, Researchers and Teachers to make an impact. Automate 3D Reconstruction, Point Cloud Processing, Spatial AI, LiDAR, Photogrammetry, GeoAI.
52. VR Discord Server
13,000 online can’t be wrong! This is a thriving server, aligned to your particular headset/framework affiliation. Not so much ‘tribalism’, moreso ‘instant support network’.
https://discord.gg/virtualreality
53. SPAITIAL Discord Server
OK, so NOT 13,000 online at any one time, but you gotta start somewhere. Introducing the SPAITIAL Discord Community. Come join us and talk about/post links/share insights on Spatial AI and related fields. Join us for our Podcast Recordings and ask questions in real-time.
54. SAIR Lab – Spatial AI & Robotics Lab @ U.Buffalo
Part of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo, SAIR Lab focuses on achieving human-level spatial awareness and reasoning in robotic systems. Their research encompasses algorithm development, theoretical properties, and real-world applications.
55. Global AI Community
A platform that connects AI communities worldwide, enabling them to share ideas and content. It offers local user groups for AI enthusiasts and experts to join, connect, and possibly start their own groups.
56. Tech with Tim Discord Server
Hosted by the YouTuber Tim Ruscica, this server is a space for enthusiasts to discuss programming, software engineering, ML, Python, and JavaScript, with over 30,000 members.
https://discord.com/servers/tech-with-tim-501090983539245061
Software and Tools to Learn
57. Blender
Yes: Maya and Cinema4D and all the CAD applications and Autodesk 3ds Max and and and… but while Blender is free-as-in-beer AND free-as-in-speech, it’s no less of a competitor to any in that list – and in many cases, pushing more updates and more community addons than anything out there. So if you need to learn about 3D modelling, 3D rendering, 3D compositing, 3D printing, 3D terrain visualisation, 3D-to-Unity or -to-Unreal… any thing 3D, really… Blender is your first port of call.
58. QGIS
If Blender is the defacto entry point to the 3D world, then QGIS is the defacto entry point for GIS and geospatial analysis. Utilising many of the same plugins as its bigger/more expensive brother ArcGIS, QGIS is a 95%? 98% copy of ArcGIS Desktop, sometimes with only a short wait until ‘the community’ replicates a major feature of ArcGIS into QGIS. Sometimes a little rough around the edges, QGIS is still a fully viable and functional tool for ALL your geoscience and spatial analytical needs. Open question, though… is it ‘QGIS’ or ‘Q-GIS’?
59. OSGeo – The Open Source Geo Collection
Not just one resource – over 20 official OSGeo software projects and tools, plus another 20 Community-driven geospatial and geology-based software tools and utilities. Well worth a review, and like the above two open-source tools, worth your time to download & explore fully before committing to commercial solutions – such is the way of open-source software.
Callouts to MapServer and GeoServer for 2D mapping frameworks; PostGIS as THE spatial database to know; GeoNode as an all-in-one mapping dataset explorer tool and CMS; and OpenDataCube as a common file container for massive raster datasets.
60. Unreal / Unity
I’m repeating myself, but since it’s a double-up anyway, it all works out in the end. Seriously: learn the basics of one: whichever one has a tutorial that’s closest to your interests. and if you had to choose… take a look at Unreal, since you may need terrain models in the future, and Nanite is the way of the future.
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US / https://unity.com/
61. OpenCV
A (the?) library for real-time computer vision applications, widely used in mobile and IOT apps for features like face detection and segmentation.
62. Apple Developer – Spatial Functions
A framework for integrating machine learning models into iOS apps, supporting the latest in ML technology including image and speech recognition. Special spatial functions directly add abilities to detect/interpret/react to various location- and orientation-based events. Even if you’re not an Apple fanboy/fangirl/fan – keeping in the loop with what Apple is releasing into its flagship hardware devices is well worth a read (reading the TechDocs is free) not to mention the $100 annual fee to begin playing with iOS and VisionOS concepts – even if you don’t own the device itself.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/spatial/spatial_functions/
63. Whitebox Geospatial Inc.
A comprehensive set of free, freemium and premium tools for GIS applications and remote sensing with support for LIDAR data and a vast collection of geospatial manipulation utilities.
64. Dataiku
Coming back into the realm of 2D and tabular-esque data, Dataiku is a brilliant blend of no-code, low-code and pro-code all-in-one Data Science integration/preparation/analytic/AI/dashboarding/presentation tool…. whew – quite a long list, but if you don’t believe me, download their Free Edition – it’s seriously free forever, and is more than enough for many/most data explorations and cleanups. Prices go up from ‘free’ (duh), but can also include all cloud storage and processing within the price point, so start small, and expand only as you explore.
65. H20.ai
Not dissimilar to Dataiku in that this is a comprehensive enterprise-grade framework for Data, Data Science and AI exploration – but again, H2O.ai also has open-source options before you get out the credit card/chequebook and fully commit. Here, H2O helps in model preparation, training and validation – and allows you to strike off the good models, and leave behind a purposeful set of less-good training runs.
Podcasts
66. Unsupervised Learning
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/unsupervised-learning/id1099711235
67. a16z Podcast – Andreessen Horowitz
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 / a16z.com
68. SPAITIAL
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/spaitial/id1727703077
69. The Human Factors Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/1202-the-human-factors-podcast/id1478605029
70. Hard Fork – The New York Times
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/hard-fork/id1528594034
71. The MapScaping Podcast
72. The Robot Report Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-robot-report-podcast/id1517684926
73. Let’s Talk Robotics!
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/lets-talk-robotics/id1517726602
74. The New Stack Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-new-stack-podcast/id915443155
75. Human Factors Cast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/human-factors-cast/id1145467269
76. The Algorithmic Futures Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-algorithmic-futures-podcast/id1606904486
77. A VerySpatial Podcast
A Podcast of Geography and geospatial technologies!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-veryspatial-podcast-discussions-on-geography/id77078611
78. NewSpaceVision
NewSpaceVision’s goal is to grow the European (New) Space startup scene and build awareness for the unique applications of space-related hard and software. NSV acts as the starting point for aspiring entrepreneurs and skillful engineers from all kinds of fields to find contact points to existing companies or find colleagues, inspirations and resources to start their own venture.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/newspacevision/id1329201123
79. TerraWatch Space Podcast
Demystifying Earth Observation, Satellite Data and Applications
https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/terrawatch-space-podcast/id1551879294
80. Minds Behind Maps
Maps Are Everywhere. These are conversations with those building them. <– and may I say, *long* conversations – perfect for long commutes and talking long walks to absorb the range of guests and topics.
https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/minds-behind-maps/id1563147579
Books to Read
81. Spatial SQL
By Matt Forrest
Learn how to use Spatial SQL to analyze and manipulate geographic data. This book covers everything from basic spatial queries to advanced spatial analysis techniques all using SQL. Even if you don’t know how SQL, this book starts from the beginning all the way to advanced queries.
82. The Economy of Algorithms: AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions
by Marek Lowalkiewicz
Welcome to the economy of algorithms. It’s here and it’s growing.
In the past few years, we have been flooded with examples of impressive technology. Algorithms have been around for hundreds of years, but they have only recently begun to ‘escape’ our understanding. We are so impressed by what they can do that we give them a lot of agency. But because they are so hard to comprehend, this leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.
83. Computer vision: Algorithms and Applications, 2nd Edition
by Richard Szeliski
Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications explores the variety of techniques used to analyze and interpret images. It also describes challenging real-world applications where vision is being successfully used, both in specialized applications such as image search and autonomous navigation, as well as for fun, consumer-level tasks that students can apply to their own personal photos and videos.
More than just a source of “recipes,” this exceptionally authoritative and comprehensive textbook/reference takes a scientific approach to the formulation of computer vision problems. These problems are then analyzed using the latest classical and deep learning models and solved using rigorous engineering principles.
84. Augmented Reality: Principles and Practice
by Dieter Schmalstieg and Tobias Hollerer
By overlaying computer-generated information on the real world, augmented reality (AR) amplifies human perception and cognition in remarkable ways. Working in this fast-growing field requires knowledge of multiple disciplines, including computer vision, computer graphics, and human-computer interaction. Augmented Reality: Principles and Practice integrates all this knowledge into a single-source reference, presenting today’s most significant work with scrupulous accuracy. Pioneering researchers Dieter Schmalstieg and Tobias Höllerer carefully balance principles and practice, illuminating AR from technical, methodological, and user perspectives.
Free sample chapter: https://arbook.icg.tugraz.at/Schmalstieg-2016-AW
85. A Brief History of Intelligence: Why the Evolution of the Brain Holds the Key to the Future of AI
by Max Bennett
A Brief History of Intelligence bridges the gap between AI and neuroscience by telling the evolutionary story of how the brain came to be.
The entirety of the human brain’s 4-billion-year story can be summarised as the culmination of five evolutionary breakthroughs, starting from the very first brains, all the way to the modern human brains. Each breakthrough emerged from new sets of brain modifications, and equipped animals with a new suite of intellectual faculties.
86. Supporting and Exploiting Spatial Memory in User Interfaces
by Joey Scarr, Andy Cockburn & Carl Gutwin
Spatial memory is an important facet of human cognition – it allows users to learn the locations of items over time and retrieve them with little effort. In human-computer interfaces, a strong knowledge of the spatial location of controls can enable a user to interact fluidly and efficiently, without needing to visually search for relevant controls. Computer interfaces should therefore be designed to provide support for developing the user’s spatial memory, and they should allow the user to exploit it for rapid interaction whenever possible.
87. 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice
by Joseph LaViola Jr., Ernst Kruijff, Doug Bowman, Ivan Poupyrev & Ryan McMahan
From video games to mobile augmented reality, 3D interaction is everywhere
But simply choosing to use 3D input or 3D displays isn’t enough: 3D user interfaces (3D UIs) must be carefully designed for optimal user experience. 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice is today’s most comprehensive primary reference to building outstanding 3D UIs. Four pioneers in 3D user interface research and practice have extensively expanded and updated this book, making it today’s definitive source for all things related to state-of-the-art 3D interaction.
88. The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World
Algorithms increasingly run our lives. They find books, movies, jobs, and dates for us, manage our investments, and discover new drugs. More and more, these algorithms work by learning from the trails of data we leave in our newly digital world. Like curious children, they observe us, imitate, and experiment. And in the world’s top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask.
On Amazon in Paperback, Hardcover and Audiobook
89. The Age of Smart Information: How Artificial Intelligence and Spatial Computing will transform the way we communicate forever
by M. Pell
Our relationship to content, and the real world itself, is changing. As we enter this next phase of ubiquitous, invisible, wearable computing, what was flat, now has dimensions. What was dead, is now alive, remarkably energized by AI and Spatial Computing. Author, Mike Pell, explains in the following pages how our data, text, pictures, graphics, and anything else really, can be enabled to reveal deeper meaning, hidden relationships, and even tell its own story.
90. Geographical Design: Spatial Cognition and Geographical Information Science
With GIS technologies ranging from Google Maps and Google Earth to the use of smart phones and in-car navigation systems, spatial knowledge is often acquired and communicated through geographic information technologies. This monograph describes the interplay between spatial cognition research and use of spatial interfaces. It begins by reviewing what is known about how humans process spatial concepts and then moves on to discuss how interfaces can be improved to take advantage to those capabilities. Special attention is given to a variety of innovative geographical platforms that provide users with an intuitive understanding and support the further acquisition of spatial knowledge.
91. Spatial Computing: An AI-Driven Business Revolution
by Cathy Hackl & Irena Cronin
Written by Irena Cronin, renowned consultant in the immersive space, and Cathy Hackl, globally recognized tech & gaming executive, futurist, and speaker, Spatial Computing: An AI-Driven Business Revolution reveals exclusive insider knowledge of what’s happening today in the convergence of AI and spatial computing. Spatial Computing is an evolving 3D-centric form of computing that uses AI, Computer Vision, and extended reality to blend virtual experiences into the physical world, breaking free from screens into everything you can see, experience, and know.
92. Interfaceless: Conscious Design for Spatial Computing with Generative AI
Explore the possibilities spatial computing and its integration with AI can provide beyond the confines of a traditional user interface. Spatial computing brings together physical and virtual worlds and systems. This book offers an insightful journey into harmonizing user-centered design with the vast potential of AI in spatial computing.
93. Special Topics in Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality: The Case of Spatial Intelligence Enhancement
by Christos Papakostas, Christos Troussas & Cleo Sgouropoulou
This monograph explores the synergy of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR) and cognitive processes to enhance spatial abilities — an integral aspect of cognitive development. The ability to comprehend and manipulate spatial information is not only fundamental to our understanding of the physical world but also plays a pivotal role in numerous academic and professional fields. Recognizing the profound impact of spatial ability on scientific disciplines and educational achievement, this monograph takes on the challenge of enhancing spatial skills among users.
Non-technical / General Advice
94. Allow yourself to be a novice
It’s OK to struggle. It’s OK to start small – the important thing is that you’ve started. *Everybody* was at the exact same place you are, right now.
95. Experiment / try everything.
The field is so wide and so changing that there’s no harm in trying new concepts/new ideas – even just for a seriously short amount of time. Fail fast – or drop things fast, if they don’t connect, don’t gel. There’s more to learn, and some other experiments or learnings may shed more light on the thing you were originally struggling with.
96. Collaborate with others / bring a buddy
Learning something new is not always a solo game – quite possibly the most awesome way to learn is to get a ‘braindump’ from a trusted friend – a dense but kind outpouring of knowledge from someone who understands you and the way you think. You then reciprocate and braindump back to them what you’ve learnt recently. Lather, rinse, repeat. Et voila!
Just tell me I’m not going crazy, because then I am going to spend a year actually building that thing. So it helps to bounce ideas off people. And sometimes you really hit a wall and you need to talk to people who’ve been there before.
Mirek Burkon, SPAITIAL Podcast
97. Put things into action
Passively reading/watching tutorials is… nice. Actually committing to doing said tutorials and introductory lessons is what makes things stick.
And make sure that your projects are with an audience/customer in mind, even if that audience or customer never finds out about it – when you’re just playing around, you tend to stop at the hard bits… amiright? but when you have an end goal/an end customer in mind, you have to push through the tricky sections – and that’s likely when things begin to make sense.
98. Quick wins are good motivation
Endorphins – love ’em. Whatever makes you tick / whatever spurs you on – do that.
- If coding gives you that tiny rush when things work, or dance across the screen or across the floor, then keep doing that.
- If seeking feedback or reviews on your writing/thinking spurs you on, then ask for feedback as often as you are able.
99. Figure out how you like to learn
There’s little point in fighting mother nature: if you learn visually, do that. If you learn by reading, or from lectures, or from writing things down – then by all means, find the way that your brain works… try new approaches every now and then, but return to the way you know work best.
100. Not everything will make you money. And that’s OK.
Ikigai – and all its variants – are a real thing: being able to find things that you love AND are good at AND pay well AND the world needs… is a rare thing. It’s OK to aim for 3 outta 4 or 2 outta 4 if you need to.
That means that many learnings and projects are simply side-hustles – things to motivate you and give you pleasure and to keep your mind active. That’s perfectly OK. the good news is that you may realise that those side hustles from years ago? They were the right things to do to get you to where you are now.
Again, we discussed this at length on last week’s SPATIAL Episode: Getting started in Spatial AI
101. You don’t know what you don’t know – and again: that’s OK.
TLDR: self-awareness is a bitch. Longer version: thanks to Mr Rumsfeld, we know that there ARE unknown unknowns – things we have absolutely no idea that we didn’t even know… and that’s completely normal.
Perhaps the biggest life lessen I could give is that feelings of inadequacy, of impostor syndrome, of never being able to catch up or get ahead – they’re all AOK. The fun part is when you do look back at all you’ve learned over the years, and can begin to list the things that are no longer scary – and are quietly impressed at yourself with how much you’re done.
Ermagerd – you made it all the way! Congratulations!
Hope you found it useful. AB
