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T : +32 (0)2 650 30 82
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M : gauthier.lafruit@ulb.ac.be
0407 626 464 RPM Bruxelles Mrs Mariolly Dávila Cordido

 
Letter of acceptance

Brussels, 12th October 2018,

To whom it might concerns,

We hereby confirm that if Mrs Davila Mariolly’s application is accepted, she will be integrated in
the LISA laboratory to work in the context of the PANORAMA platform.

PANORAMA​​ is an interfaculty virtual 3D imaging platform founded by three ULB laboratories :

CReA-Patrimoine, ALiCE and ​LISA​​. The 3D survey is essential for many academics, but also for
industry and other public bodies. The digital capture has the advantage to be a qualitative tool to
simulate a new implantation site but it also allows a rigorous quantitative survey for dimensioning
and realization of specific plans. Its application domains range from archaeology to architecture
and diverse real estate’s projects management(e.g.BIM modeling). The platform offers a
wide range of services including data acquisition and processing, point clouds capturing systems,
photogrammetry methods, as well as architectural and designed objects virtual representations.
The platform, which capitalizes on 15 years of experience, also proposes customized informatics
tools and consulting activities.

LISA has developed expertise both in image analysis/pattern recognition and computer graphics.
In the field of image analysis and pattern recognition, this unit develops new methods for object
segmentation, recognition and tracking in 2D and 3D problems, multimodal image registration, as
well as statistical learning methods applied to image and data analysis. Image synthesis and
virtual reality research activities are oriented towards 3D real-time rendering of complex
geometry and objects, exact visibility computation, gestural interfaces for real-time applications in
various domains such as industry, medical applications and cultural heritage.
Excellence
Quality, credibility, innovative character, timeliness of the research project ;
Mrs Davila Mariolly has a Ph.D. degree in Visual Communication in Architecture and Design, and
Architectural Graphic Representation, from the School of Architecture of Barcelona (Polytechnic
University of Catalonia. Barcelona, Spain). Mrs Davila Mariolly has an excellent track record in
terms of publications (4 peer-reviewed journals, 9 peer-reviewed conferences, and several
publications in magazines). She is member of three different engineering and architect
associations and obtained three awards.
Mrs Davila Mariolly’s teaching experience consist of 6 courses related to the use of 3D
techniques for architectural applications.
She obtained and managed three funded projects involving Architecture and Augmented Reality
between 2013 and present day, and has made a dozen of punctual expertises.

Appropriate consideration of interdisciplinary aspects

Mrs Davila Mariolly presents a clear interdisciplinary profile, on one hand by her education in
architecture and her numerous trainings in computer sciences techniques, and on the other hand
by the numerous projects she developed, mixing both ​architecture and ​computer-based
techniques​​ (augmented reality and digital 3D modeling).

Appropriate consideration of gender aspects

In engineering at ULB, there are very few female researchers, especially post-doctoral ones. In
addition, according to the ULB's "Gender Equality 2016-2017" report, the percentage of research
contracts obtained by women in our faculty is less than 6% and represents 3% of the amounts
obtained. It is therefore particularly appropriate to include in our team this candidate who has
demonstrated her ability to obtain research projects.

Appropriateness of the training

Quality of the two-way transfer of knowledge between the researcher and the hosting group
Mrs Davila Mariolly will bring to the LISA and the Panorama platform her expertise acquired on
her numerous projects, her teaching experience will also help the training of the other
researchers hosted by the LISA laboratory and the PANORAMA platform.
Conversely, she will benefit from the highly specialised development made by PANORAMA in
terms of high-quality 3D scene acquisition (building and other environments) and also from the
LISA expertise in advanced VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) techniques.

Appropriateness of the supervision and integration in the hosting group

Integration of Mrs Davila Mariolly will be assured by Prof Gauthier Lafruit, academic responsible
for the LISA 3D research activities, Prof Debeir Olivier, who is the responsible academic of the
PANORAMA platform, and Henry-Louis Guillaume, who acts as the Research Logistician of the
platform.
The PANORAMA platform is an ideal hub for Mrs Davila Mariolly’s research thanks to the
numerous techniques made available, among others: the drone photogrammetry of interior and
exterior of buildings, a state-of-the-art long-range time-of-flight 3D laser scanner (FARO Focus S
350) and the complete computing infrastructure enabling the 3D modeling from the acquired
data.

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Quality of the researcher and potential to reach professional independence
The proposed context of the PANORAMA platform will ensure to Mrs Davila Mariolly an efficient
technical support (staff and equipment) to develop her original research projects. Moreover, she
has already demonstrated her skills to set up and manage research projects.

Impact
Enhancing the future career prospects of the researcher
Mrs Davila Mariolly will benefit from the rich ULB ecosystem in terms of advanced virtual and
augmented reality expertise of the LISA laboratory (see below), but also the close connection the
LISA maintains with other research units directly related to this project (CReA-Patrimoine and
ALiCE), thanks to the PANORAMA platform.

Enhancing the perspective of new research and collaboration opportunities for the hosting
group and beyond
The case study proposed by Mrs Davila Mariolly, The Brussels Stock Exchange, is, in that
respect very interesting, the former convent of the Recoletos which is located just in the Stock
Exchange flanc and is nowadays of primarily urgency due to future public works. Mrs Davila
Mariolly’s research will also benefit to ongoing research projects of the PANORAMA associated
laboratories, ALiCE for architectural aspects and the CReA-Patrimoine for other Brussels
buildings under investigation, some having already been partially acquired in 3D by the
PANORAMA team (e.g. Hotel de Ville de Bruxelles1).

Quality of the strategy for the dissemination, communication and exploitation of project results
and activities
Being assisted by the technical staff of LISA and PANORAMA platform, Mrs Davila Mariolly will
be able to rapidly develop her own original research, and - by joining her effort to already active
researchers (PhD and Postdocs) - she will be able to generate new scientific contributions.
Contributions foreseen are twofold, on one hand she will produce original contributions that are
related to the technical and methodological framework she will develop (applications, 3D data
processing chain, virtual and augmented reality) mostly with engineers, on the other hand she
will apply this framework to both architectural and archeological challenges of the PANORAMA
team.

Implementation
Coherence, feasibility and effectiveness of the work plan;
Appropriate allocation of resources
As described above, Mrs Davila Mariolly will join the PANORAMA platform, which is located in
the same building as the LISA 3D team. She will be in close contact with LISA PhD researchers
Sarah Fachada and Daniele Bonatto that are working on 3D real-time rendering of natural
scenes, which eases the development of complex and efficient technical solutions. She will also
collaborate with Henry-Louis Guillaume, the logistician of the PANORAMA platform and the
postdoc Arnaud Schenkel who are both specialised in 3D acquisition and data processing of
buildings and large infrastructures, this expertise will guarantee the access to the 3D data for the
research.

1
​http://panorama.ulb.ac.be/

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 Appropriateness of the management structure and procedures, including risk Management
The LISA and PANORAMA are already very well connected, since Prof Gauthier Lafruit and Prof
Olivier Debeir of the LISA are in the managing board of the PANORAMA platform. PANORAMA
is also very well connected to Alice and the Crea-Patrimoine whose head are also part of the
management of the platform.
This close interaction will mitigate the principal risk of the access to the 3D data, since already
several other projects are ongoing and may serve as fall-back use cases.

Appropriateness of the infrastructure and complementarity of participating organisations

The complementarity of the expertise needed to achieve the postdoc objectives is covered by the
multidisciplinary nature of the PANORAMA platform itself. The support of the University to this
kind of structure is an opportunity to support new high-quality research.

Ethical considerations
No a priori ethical consideration should be taken into account. However, the research is dealing
with several aspects of copyright and other content protection. Those aspects are well known by
the laboratories involved in the platform and will be tackled in collaboration with the University
legal advisers.

Professor Gauthier Lafruit Professor Debeir Olivier

LISA for the PANORAMA platform

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