POSE: Phase I: Enabling an Open-Source Ecosystem for 4D Dynamic Geometry in XR, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems

This Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) project addresses the increasing demand for tools that handle fast changing 3D and 4D visual information used in robotics, extended reality, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and similar areas. Current resources are scattered and incompatible, slowing progress and limiting access. This project addresses these challenges by planning a shared, open ecosystem for dynamic 4D geometry data, enabling common standards, tools, and workflows that can be used across domains. The project supports broader participation in spatial computing and accelerates progress in applications such as immersive education, remote operation, and intelligent automation. This effort directly serves the national interest by strengthening the data infrastructure underlying next-generation computing systems. Advances in interoperable spatial data processing can improve the reliability and responsiveness of systems used in areas such as disaster response, critical infrastructure monitoring, and defense and surveillance operations, where timely and accurate spatial understanding is essential. At the same time, the project contributes to economic growth by enabling scalable data pipelines for autonomous systems and spatial computing platforms, supporting innovation across industry sectors. This project scopes and designs an open-source ecosystem for 4D dynamic geometry, building on an existing research artifact as a foundation. The effort focuses on identifying shared abstractions, interoperable data representations, and system-level requirements that enable extensible development across domains such as extended reality (XR), robotics, and autonomous systems. The team will study existing 4D geometry tools, identify common needs, and outline a unified ecosystem that supports shared formats and development infrastructure. The team interviews developers and users to define requirements for interfaces, benchmarks, and governance. The project also evaluates risk, licensing needs, and technical constraints to ensure long-term sustainability. The outcome will include a blueprint for a community-driven open-source framework for dynamic geometry. In addition, the project analyzes fragmentation across current pipelines to identify opportunities to standardize data models and workflows. It examines trade-offs in performance, scalability, and cross-platform compatibility, and assess security and robustness considerations for shared infrastructure. The resulting open-source ecosystem will include a reference architecture, governance model, and evaluation methodology to guide the future development and adoption of scalable 4D geometry processing systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2612077 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Mallesham Dasari | Institution: Northeastern University, BOSTON, MA | Award Amount: $300,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2612077 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2612077.html