The ability to label and track physical objects that are assets in digital representations of the world is foundational to many complex systems. Simple, yet powerful methods such as bar- and QR-codes have been highly successful, e.g. in the retail space, but the lack of security, limited information content and impossibility of seamless integration with the environment have prevented a large-scale linking of physical objects to their digital twins. This paper proposes to link digital assets created through building information modeling (BIM) with their physical counterparts using fiducial markers with patterns defined by cholesteric spherical reflectors (CSRs), selective retroreflectors produced using liquid crystal self-assembly. The markers leverage the ability of CSRs to encode information that is easily detected and read with computer vision while remaining practically invisible to the human eye. We analyze the potential of a CSR-based infrastructure from the perspective of BIM, critically reviewing the outstanding challenges in applying this new class of functional materials, and we discuss extended opportunities arising in assisting autonomous mobile robots to reliably navigate human-populated environments, as well as in augmented reality.

标记和跟踪作为世界数字表示中资产的物理对象的能力是许多复杂系统的基础。条形码和二维码等简单而强大的方法已经非常成功，例如在零售领域，但缺乏安全性、信息内容有限以及无法与环境无缝集成，阻碍了大规模物理连接对象到他们的数字孪生。本文建议将通过建筑信息模型 (BIM) 创建的数字资产与其物理对应物联系起来，使用具有胆甾型球形反射器 (CSR) 定义的图案的基准标记，这是使用液晶自组装生产的选择性后向反射器。这些标记利用 CSR 的能力对信息进行编码，这些信息可以通过计算机视觉轻松检测和读取，同时对人眼几乎不可见。我们从 BIM 的角度分析了基于 CSR 的基础设施的潜力，批判性地审查了应用这类新型功能材料的突出挑战，并讨论了在协助自主移动机器人可靠地导航人类居住环境方面出现的扩展机会，如以及在增强现实中。