Master Thesis "Material Aware Inline 3D Imaging"

In cooperation with TU Wien – Institute for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

As Austria's largest research and technology organisation for applied research, AIT is dedicated to making substantial contributions to solving major challenges such as climate change and digitalisation.

Our Center for Vision, Automation & Control located in Vienna invites applications for a master’s thesis position. The Center exploits automation and digitalisation to initiate and advance innovation for industry, primarily in Austria and Europe.

For this master's thesis project, you will join the Competence Unit High-Performance Vision Systems (HVS), which has over 20 years of research experience in industrial inspection and quality assurance. At HVS, 2D and 3D vision systems are developed that go beyond the state of the art by using advanced vision sensor concepts, scalable embedded vision systems, and machine learning methods for industrial high-performance visual quality inspection.

The objective of this master’s thesis project is to evaluate the potential of material aware 3D reconstruction methods for industrial fast inline inspection applications. While many state-of-the-art optical inline 3D scanners primarily deliver geometric depth information, industrial processes often require deeper object knowledge beyond geometrical dimensions. Color, roughness, reflectance behavior, and other optically detectable material properties carry essential information for robust defect detection and quality control.

Within the HVS unit, AIT has established technology for inline computationally imaging color and photometric information alongside 3D depth information. Building on this, the master’s thesis, carried out in cooperation with TU Wien – Research Group Photogrammetry, will combine application-oriented research with academic expertise in photogrammetry, remote sensing, and advanced 3D reconstruction methods. The specific thesis focus will be adapted depending on the students’ skill and interests, for example towards the integration of material-aware Gaussian Splatting representation or multispectral imaging.

• You will acquire basic skills in inline optical 3D imaging for process control and automation.
• You will carry out a literature search and review on state-of-the-art optical detection and reconstruction of material properties.
• You will explore the potential of material aware Gaussian Splatting and related approaches or sensing methods like multispectral imaging for fast inline quality control.
• Under the guidance of experienced researchers, you will have access to the machine vision lab as well as a digital-twin Blender model of the lab setup, to carry out experiments and collect datasets.
• Depending on the direction of the thesis, there is the possibility to expand the existing lab-setup with multispectral sensing capabilities.
• A selected Gaussian Splatting algorithm, for example RefGS, 3DGSDR, or GShader, can serve as a starting point for further adaptation towards modelling and reconstructing material properties and can be extended or complemented depending on your individual research direction.

Your qualifications as an Ingenious Partner:

• Ongoing master's studies at TU Wien in the field of Geodesy and Geoinformation, Computer Vision, Image Processing, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics or similar.
• Good knowledge in computer vision and/or image processing are required.
• Interest in machine vision, computer graphics and machine learning.
• Experience in at least one of the programming languages Python or C++. CUDA, OpenCV or Blender experience advantageous.
• Hands-on lab work experience with image acquisition using industrial or digital imaging is advantageous.
• Experience in material aware object representation such as Ref-Gaussian or Material-Informed GS is advantageous.
• High level of commitment and team spirit.
• Very good English skills, spoken and written.

What to expect:

• Duration of the master’s thesis project: 6 months.
• Start date: ideally June 2026, with some flexibility depending on your availability.
• EUR 1.027,40 gross per month for 20 hours/week based on the collective agreement. There will be additional company benefits.
• Opportunity to work on a real-world research challenge that arose in ongoing collaborations with industrial partners and gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge imaging technologies at the forefront of application-driven research.
• Mentoring and a well-established research setting with joint supervision from AIT and TU Wien.

At AIT, an inclusive and family-friendly working environment promotes equal opportunities and actively strengthens diversity across the workforce and leadership positions. AIT is committed to increasing the proportion of women in the company and particularly welcomes applications from female applicants.

Please submit your application documents including your CV, cover letter, relevant certificates, transcript of records, as well as a proof of identity, online.

Apply now!