  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 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.
