December 15, 2015

Patent Awarded for Technology Powering StockpileReports.com

Author: Stockpile Reports

URC Ventures was awarded its first patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Patent #9,196,084 was awarded to URCV for Determining Object Volume from Mobile Device Images.

URCV specializes in solving industry challenges through real-time digitization of the physical world, and was a featured presenter at the recent Capturing Reality Forum in Salzburg, Austria. Company team members are recognized as experts in reality capture, photogrammetry and 3D modeling utilizing massive world-scale image sets and stereo modeling technology.

Stockpile Reports is the first commercial application for the company. Stockpile Reports leverages URC Venture’s mobile imaging technology to accurately measure the volume of stockpiled material, delivering accurate stockpile volume, tonnage and pile locations via an Apple® iPhone® device, by aerial, or UAS data. StockpileReports.com is currently being used by over 100 companies in 12 countries, to manage over $2 billion dollars in inventory.

“StockpileReports.com illustrates how reality capture can be applied to solve real business and industry problems,” said David Boardman, CEO of URC Ventures. “The technology behind the patent currently powers the service. URCV’s innovation is transforming the way physical inventory counts are being performed in the industry.”

“We have been processing over a 100 million images from cell phones and other cameras in an academic context for years,” stated Dr. Jan- Michael Frahm, Chief Science Advisor at URC Ventures. “We’re very pleased to be recognized by the U.S. Patent Office for being innovative, and also proud that our patented technology is being utilized by people like DOT workers, engineers, and quarry managers. We’re working to solve everyday business problems. URCV will continue to discover, and provide solutions. This patent is just the beginning.”

URCV Team members Jan-Michael Frahm, Brian Clipp, Charles Erignac and Jared Heinly hold Doctorate degrees in Computer Graphics, Computer Design, and Computer Vision. Dr. Jan-Michael Frahm has written over 100 peer-reviewed publications in computer vision conferences and journals, and is an Editor in Chief of the Elsevier Journal of Image and Vision Computing. Team members currently hold 32 other patents.

The full text of the patent is available on the website of the United States Patent and Trademark Office at www.uspto.gov.