HoRAMA: Holistic Reconstruction with Automated Material Assignment for Ray Tracing using NYURay

TL;DR

HoRAMA automates the creation of accurate 3D environment models from RGB videos for wireless ray tracing, significantly reducing reconstruction time and enabling scalable 5G/6G network planning.

Contribution

This paper introduces HoRAMA, a novel method combining vision-based reconstruction and automated material assignment to produce RT-compatible 3D models from simple RGB videos.

Findings

Achieves 2.28 dB RMSE in MPC power prediction, comparable to manual models.

Reduces 3D reconstruction time from two months to 16 hours.

Enables scalable and rapid wireless environment modeling for next-generation networks.

Abstract

Next-generation wireless networks at upper mid-band and millimeter-wave frequencies require accurate site-specific deterministic channel propagation prediction. Wireless ray tracing (RT) provides site-specific predictions but demands high-fidelity three-dimensional (3D) environment models with material properties. Manual 3D model reconstruction achieves high accuracy but requires weeks of expert effort, creating scalability bottlenecks for large environment reconstruction. Traditional vision-based 3D reconstruction methods lack RT compatibility due to geometrically defective meshes and missing material properties. This paper presents Holistic Reconstruction with Automated Material Assignment (HoRAMA) for wireless propagation prediction using NYURay. HoRAMA generates RT-compatible 3D models from RGB video readily captured using a smartphone or low-cost portable camera, by integrating MASt3R-SLAM dense point cloud generation with vision language model-assisted material assignment. The HoRAMA 3D reconstruction method is verified by comparing NYURay RT predictions, using both manually created and HoRAMA-generated 3D models, against field measurements at 6.75 GHz and 16.95 GHz across 12 TX-RX locations in a 700 square meter factory. HoRAMA ray tracing predictions achieve a 2.28 dB RMSE for matched multipath component (MPC) power predictions, comparable to the manually created 3D model baseline (2.18 dB), while reducing 3D reconstruction time from two months to 16 hours. HoRAMA enables scalable wireless digital twin creation for RT network planning, infrastructure deployment, and beam management in 5G/6G systems, as well as eventual real-time implementation at the edge.