Robert Flatt

ETH Zurich is offering a fully funded four-year doctoral position in 3D scene reconstruction and multi-modal sensing for information-rich digital twins of stone-built heritage. The project is part of the collaborative HC3 – Heritage Conservation Collaboration Copilots initiative, led by the Chair of Physical Chemistry of Building Materials and the Chair of Geosensors and Engineering Geodesy. The doctoral researcher will work on reality capture at scale, including LiDAR and imaging technologies deployed from ground-based and UAV platforms. Research activities include calibrating, registering, and fusing point clouds and imagery; developing 3D representations such as point clouds, meshes, neural radiance fields, and 3D Gaussian splatting; and creating deep-learning methods for segmenting building elements such as stone blocks. The project will also investigate machine-learning approaches for inferring stone deterioration types and severity from multi-modal data and time series. The researcher will collaborate with other doctoral researchers, a postdoctoral researcher, material scientists, conservation practitioners, and physical chemistry laboratories. The work will contribute to digital twins, HBIM, extended reality, heritage conservation, climate-change impact assessment, and publications in leading journals and conferences. Applicants should hold or be completing an MSc in geomatics, remote sensing, computer vision, robotics, computer science, or a related discipline. Strong skills in 2D/3D perception, photogrammetry, point-cloud and image processing, 3D reconstruction, parameter estimation, machine learning, and Python or C++ are expected. Laser-scanning or imaging experience is advantageous, while willingness to conduct monument fieldwork is essential. Excellent English is required; French or German is an advantage. Applications must include a CV, cover letter, two requested descriptions concerning previous work and the proposed doctoral vision, contact information for two references, and an MSc degree or diploma copy. Apply exclusively through the ETH Zurich online portal.