A Conversation with Qin Youming: From the MaRS Lab to the "Liuxing" Machine, Building the Most Authentic Virtual World | Seriously Speaking EP28
The future belongs to the three-dimensional world.
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This episode's guest is Aaron Youming Qin, co-founder and CEO of 3DFlow.
In 2017, while an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, Qin led his team to the RoboMaster finals on his first attempt — one of only two North American teams to advance that far. During his PhD, he worked with advisor Fu Zhang to establish MaRS Lab, the University of Hong Kong's first drone laboratory. Its best-known open-source project, FAST-LIO, has had far-reaching international impact in 3D mapping and surveying, with 2.4k GitHub stars. In 2022, Qin and Wei Xu, first author of FAST-LIO, founded 3DFlow. The company turned profitable just three months after launching its product.
In this episode, we discuss the pivotal moments before Qin co-founded 3DFlow, the company's technical approach and disruptive innovations in 3D reconstruction, the difference between 3D perception data capture and vision-only approaches, how 3DFlow found its primary use cases, and what the future of 3D perception technology looks like amid the XR and embodied intelligence waves. If you're fascinated by robotic 3D perception, image reconstruction, and the evolution of VR and AR, subscribe and tune in~
3D Perception and a Visible Future
Guest Bio
Youming Qin: Co-founder and CEO of 3DFlow
Timeline
Before Entrepreneurship: Going Deeper in Robotics Research
01:39 His connection to robotics research and experiences as a student
05:13 Becoming the "first generation" of HKU's MaRS Lab
Core Is 3D Perception and Decision-Making: 3DFlow's Ambitions Extend Far Beyond Surveying
10:20 3DFlow focuses on R&D and application of robotic spatial perception and decision-making technology
12:13 Tried art, gaming, special inspection, and other scenarios — ultimately found the most direct feedback in construction
21:04 Founders tinkering with tech at home every day is actually a sign of neglecting their real duties
23:18 3DFlow's current product lineup and the technical principles behind them
26:18 Once technical bottlenecks are solved, the future definitely belongs to the 3D world
30:18 Technical advantages are never permanent moats; understanding customers matters more
36:06 Profitable within six months of founding — 3DFlow as an outstanding industry-academia-research case study
37:23 3DFlow's current commercialization plans and directions for expanding application scenarios
Technical Bottlenecks and a Visible Future: Imagining 3D Perception for Embodied Intelligence
40:57 Perception and decision-making technology is actually the core prerequisite for embodied intelligence
43:51 A 3D equivalent of the DSLR will definitely emerge at some point, but its arrival has prerequisites
46:13 From a consumer perspective, 3DFlow's ultimate large-scale scenario may be integration with gaming and 3D social
On Entrepreneurship: Continuous Exploration and Experimentation
47:21 My philosophy: seize the limited time in life to explore the vision I believe in
49:09 Advice and book recommendations for students and professionals with a robotics background
Related Resources
FAST-LIO Project: An open-source project developed by HKU's MaRS Lab, focused on fast LiDAR-visual 3D mapping. Recognized and adopted by the industry for its efficiency, robustness, and adaptability across environments.
Project GitHub link: https://github.com/hku-mars/FAST_LIO
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If you have any startup ideas or collaboration inquiries, email us at media@zhenfund.com!
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