As Austria's largest research and technology organisation for applied research, we are dedicated to make substantial contributions to solving the major challenges of our time, 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 we innovate 2D & 3D vision systems that go beyond the state of the art by developing 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, such as laser triangulation sensors, primarily deliver geometric depth information, industrial processes often require deeper object knowledge beyond geometrical dimensions. Color, roughness, reflectance behavior, and many other optically detectable material properties carry essential information for robust defect detection and quality control.

Within our High-Performance Vision Systems unit we established a top-notch technology for inline computationally imaging color and photometric information alongside 3D depth information. Building on this, the master’s thesis, which will be 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 e.g. towards the integration of material-aware gaussian splatting representation or multispectral imaging.

Master Thesis "Material Aware Inline 3D Imaging"

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

Your responsibilities:

• A selected Gaussian Splatting algorithm (e.g. 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.
• Depending on the direction of the thesis, there is the  possibility to expand the existing lab-setup  with multispectral sensing capabilities.
• Under the guidance of our experienced researchers, you will have access to our machine vision lab as well as a digital-twin blender model of the lab-setup, to carry out experiments and collect datasets.
• You will explore the  potential of material aware Gaussian Splatting and related approaches  or sensing methods like multispectral imaging for fast inline quality control.
• You will  carry out a literature search and review  on state-of-the-art optical detection and reconstruction of material properties.
• You will  acquire basic skills in inline optical 3D imaging  for process control and automation.

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, C++. CUDA, OpenCV or Blender experience advantageous
• Hands-on lab work experience with image acquisition using industrial/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, we create an inclusive and family-friendly working environment that promotes equal opportunities and actively strengthens diversity across our workforce and in leadership positions. Among other initiatives, we are committed to increasing the proportion of women in our company and therefore particularly welcome applications from female applicants.

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