Data Management Challenges for Internet-scale 3D Search Engines

This paper describes the most significant data-related challenges involved in building internet-scale 3D search engines. The discussion centers on the most pressing data management issues in this domain, including model acquisition, support for multiple file formats, asset versioning, data integrity errors, the data lifecycle, intellectual property, and the legality of web crawling. The paper also discusses numerous issues that fall under the rubric of trustworthy computing, including privacy, security, inappropriate content, and copying/remixing of assets. The goal of the paper is to provide an overview of these general issues, illustrated by empirical data drawn from the internet's largest operational search engine. While numerous works have been published on 3D information retrieval, this paper is the first to discuss the real-world challenges that arise in building practical search engines at scale.