Through the use of Area Targets, industrial organisations can create AR interfaces within their facilities to enable employees to better engage with machinery and understand how the environment is being utilised.

More information can be found here https://library.vuforia.com/features/environments/area-targets.html

PTC says that with support from Matterport and Leica 3D scanners, along with NavVis’s indoor mobile mapping systems, Area Targets users can generate “photorealistic, survey-grade digital twins, empowering them to create digital canvases of spaces such as factories, malls, or offices for advanced spatial computing applications”.

As one of the leading emerging technologies, spatial computing powers digital twin renderings to support the activities of machines and people, as well as environments in which they operate.

When deployed across the industrial enterprise, spatial computing enables seamless interactions between employees through AR, enabling companies to close the loop on performance management, improve machine learning capabilities with spatial analytics, and optimise design and factory floor operations,” notes PTC.

“Vuforia Engine Area Targets is a one-of-a-kind solution for large, persistent AR experiences,” said Mike Campbell, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Augmented Reality, PTC.

“Whether users are looking to add navigation to their office building or view in-context data on a factory floor, Area Targets is the answer. We’re pleased to be expanding such a key capability and component of PTC’s spatial computing vision.”

The release of Vuforia Engine Area Targets marks the second Vuforia offering to deploy spatial computing in the form of area targets within the industrial setting, the first being the Vuforia Spatial Toolbox platform.

Combined with the Vuforia Chalk, Vuforia Expert Capture, and Vuforia Studio AR products, the Vuforia AR Enterprise Platform provides what PTC says is a “robust set of offerings that enables users to increase workforce safety and efficiency, improve customer experiences, and reduce costs”.

CooperVision has successfully deployed Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses equipped with LogistiVIEW’s Vision+ augmented reality warehouse software to provide hands-free picking guidance at their 275,000 square foot West Henrietta, New York distribution site, which at any given time stores more than 120,000 different contact lens products.

LogistiVIEW’s Vision+ Software Automation Platform combines the best of traditional picking tools including augmented reality PTL, visual instructions, voice interaction, gesture control, and RF scanning, into a single system.

The combined set of instructions are delivered to the worker intuitively and hands-free through Vuzix M400 AR Smart Glasses, avoiding the need for any bolted down infrastructure. AI and computer vision add an intelligence layer to the process, optimizing tasks and pick sequence for the best possible efficiency.

At the CooperVision warehouse, employees are now using Vuzix Smart Glasses to assist with order picking.

Vuzix’ M400 Smart Glasses equipped with LogistiVIEW’s Vision+ software provides a hands-free solution that is delivering efficiency gains in our operations,” said Michele Bosa, Vice President, Americas Distribution of CooperVision.

“The ability to offer LogistiVIEW’s patented computer vision and AR visualizations on Vuzix Smart Glasses provides customers like CooperVision with a highly flexible solution to boost the efficiency and accuracy of their operations,” said Seth Patin, Founder and CEO of LogistiVIEW.

“The versatility of our M400 Smart Glasses continues to drive customer demand across a wide range of industry verticals and it’s great to see CooperVision using Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses in their Upstate New York distribution center to deliver hands-free productivity gains in their operations,” said Paul Travers, President and CEO of Vuzix.

Read the original Vuzix press release about CooperVision here.

Microsoft will fulfil an order for 120,000 AR headsets for the Army based on their Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) design. The modified design upgrades the capabilities of the HoloLens 2 for the needs of soldiers in the field.

“The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios,” says Microsoft’s Alex Kipman.

Microsoft says this announcement marks the transition from prototyping these designs to producing and rolling them out in the field.  This is a huge step for Augmented Reality technology.

According to the US Army, the IVAS system is designed to streamline existing vision-enhancing and immersive training capabilities into a single platform.

“The suite of capabilities leverages existing high-resolution night, thermal, and Soldier-borne sensors integrated into a unified Heads Up Display to provide the improved situational awareness, target engagement, and informed decision-making necessary to achieve overmatch against current and future adversaries,” the US Army writes. “The system also leverages augmented reality and machine learning to enable a life-like mixed reality training environment so the Close Combat Force can rehearse before engaging any adversaries.”

Read further information on Microsoft’s Blog

See Microsoft’s AREA profile. 

Through the use of Area Targets, industrial organizations can create AR interfaces within their facilities to enable employees to better engage with machinery and understand how the environment is being utilized.

With support from Matterport and Leica 3D scanners, along with NavVis’s indoor mobile-mapping systems, Area Targets users can generate photorealistic, survey-grade digital twins, empowering them to create digital canvases of spaces such as factories, malls, or offices for advanced spatial computing applications.

As one of the leading emerging technologies, spatial computing powers digital twin renderings to support the activities of machines and people, as well as environments in which they operate. When deployed across the industrial enterprise, spatial computing enables seamless interactions between employees through AR, enabling companies to close the loop on performance management, improve machine-learning capabilities with spatial analytics, and optimize design and factory floor operations.

Read more at the original article. 

Title “How will Augmented Reality Revolutionise the Building Industry?”

Please find below the webinar recording for future reference:

Topic: How will Augmented Reality revolutionise the building industry?

Start Time: March 15^th, 2021 18:35

If you didn’t catch the recording at the time you can watch the replay here at the Meeting Recording link

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/KKNgfCCysodDIn3jYij0ZIrGx5p-H770FZvIpAgUZFKTc1C__fR3pA2lhrFNHsDw.csXrUNbVY57uZfIU

Access Passcode: vT#kncB3

Speaker Details:

Mark Sage

Executive Director

AR for Enterprise Alliance

The Company has granted the underwriters an option for a period of 30 days to purchase up to an additional 621,951 shares of common stock at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The offering is expected to close on or about March 30, 2021, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The gross proceeds to the Company from the offering, excluding any exercise by the underwriters of their option to purchase additional shares, are expected to be approximately $85 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by the Company.

Read the Full press release. 

This looked at how XR technologies can be used to help groups on engineers review their design data collaboratively, at full scale and in-context, from anywhere.

We also showed a video demonstration of Theorem-XR’s Design Review experience, with examples such as manipulating models and capturing design changes live.

If you missed it, you can watch the webinar here.

Through the partnership Arvizio and Sight Power will offer stakeholders a seamless integration of mining data, 3D models and LiDAR scans to be shared between Sight Power’s Digital Mine platform and Arvizio’s Immerse 3D augmented reality solution. The combination will provide the mining industry with an integrated suite of mining operations software and AR to help optimize the mining process by reducing costs, improving efficiencies, increasing productivity, and enhancing safety, according to Arvizio.

Augmented reality technology represents an important aspect of the mining industry’s digital transformation and it is increasingly emerging as a key component to incorporate and visualize mine planning data in the design, operations, resource management, and investor relations processes.

Sight Power’s Digital Mine platform is a system for collecting and processing detailed information relating to all operations and work processes in the mining enterprise. This information, when merged with modeling, monitoring, and distributed sensor systems, offers a cohesive solution to automate daily, routine operations for geologists, mining engineers, mine surveyors, and other specialists, which can help to increase labor productivity and reduce technical errors, according to the company.

Arvizio’s Immerse 3D solution allows 3D models and LiDAR scans to be visualized in AR. Combined with Digital Mine, the two platforms allow for the visualization of LiDAR scans and geological models from mining operations that may cover many miles/kilometers and include multiple layers. Furthermore, Immerse 3D enhances the Digital Mine platform by extending its capabilities to include multi-user, multi-location AR visualization and collaboration in fully synchronized sessions utilizing web meeting platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

“Our work with leading mining companies using Digital Mine demonstrated that combining operational technology, monitoring systems, devices and spatial datasets into a single workflow system, streamlines mining operations at every phase,” said Sergey Reznichenko, CEO at Sight Power. “We are delighted to team with Arvizio to integrate Immerse 3D AR visualization into our workflows and use augmented reality to empower stakeholders around the world for a more efficient exchange of information, problem solving, verification of key operations and safety systems in their mining projects.”

Arvizio stated that its Immerse 3D platform extension enhances the capabilities of Sight Power’s Digital Mine technology and can be applied to the following use cases:

• Supporting staff training and equipment repairs to reduce operational costs and downtime;
• Extending Digital Twin capabilities for processing plants for real-time monitoring;
• Real-time virtual presence at mining sites;
• On-going evaluation of mine evolution models to identify issues and avoid costly overruns.

PTC’s global survey of industrial companies supports this sentiment with 92% already on their DX journey. However, the analysis exposes critical nuances to DX strategies based on their maturity, which fall into three distinct stages: Planning, Piloting, and Rollout.

The evolving mindsets for attainable value shifts for each stage from understanding where value is (planning), proving value exists or is realizable (piloting), and scaling value across the organization (rollout).

Companies at these different stages have distinct needs, project priorities, and potential blind spots.

In this report, PTC complements data-driven insights and key takeaways from their global survey with case-study driven recommendations for each of these stages.

The result is a framework for industrial organizations to use as a benchmark for where they are in their DX journey and how their priorities compare with the market.

PTC has surveyed over 360 global Senior-level leaders at industrial companies annually to define their state of digital transformation. Respondents have DX decision-making and influencing roles in their respective companies. These DX leaders represent an array of discrete and process manufacturers across regions and organizational functions.

See the findings of the PTC report here. 

Read PTC AREA member profile here.

A press release dated March 16, 2021, London, UK reveals that AREA member RealWear, Inc., the global leader of hands-free head-mounted wearables, today announced that Mace Group (‘Mace’), a global consultancy and construction firm headquartered in London, deployed RealWear’s assisted reality wearable computers running voice-enabled Microsoft Teams, paving the way forward for the global construction industry. For the first time, the voice-activated RealWear HMT-1 wearable device has enabled hundreds of its workers and clients to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and reduce its carbon footprint via using the device for remote inspections during the construction process.  The wearable deployment marks a first for the construction industry.

Mace works on a number of construction projects both in the UK and across the globe. When the pandemic hit and travel restrictions came into effect, Mace envisioned an entirely new and safer way to inspect building façades. To operate as effectively and as safely as possible under seemingly indefinite social distancing restrictions, it needed a solution that would enable inspection work to still be carried out but with minimal people onsite than normally permitted.

RealWear’s assisted reality head-mounted wearable computers require only a single site inspector to be physically present, while multiple others ‘view’ the site clearly and remotely from their own location, via a feed that streams from the innovative headset directly to the viewer’s handheld or laptop computer. The technology negates the need to physically travel to a site, while also delivering on Mace’s requirement for its workforce to be fully connected through remote collaboration. Furthermore, the deployment has banished the logistical and planning complexities of trying to coordinate the diaries of several site inspectors to be present at the same time on the same day. Since the completion of the deployment this month Mace has been able to reduce in-person site visits, and its Façade team has seen a 75% reduction in travel; not only has this resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions, but the time saved has freed up staff to be more productive during the course of their day.

“With its willingness to embrace the future, it’s appropriate that Mace is at the head of the curve within the construction industry with respect to deploying wearable technology,” commented Phil Sedge, Head of Facade, Mace Group. “Since the deployment, we have seen improvements in the decision-making process, and we’re able to share real-time information instantaneously. The technology has enabled us to reduce the number of staff travelling to site, without any compromises to the quality of our work. The time saving and environmental benefits deliver further advantages.” He added: “RealWear’s reinvestment back into product development has also impressed us, which means that the foundations of this technology are future proofed. We only wish we had deployed it sooner.”

Following an in-depth consultation with RealWear partner, SystemActive, which involved various demos via video conference, Mace selected RealWear’s purpose built, voice enabled HMT-1 over other solutions available in the market, including smart glasses. The RealWear headsets met Mace’s requirements for no compromises on safety, for hands-free operation and the ability to clip to the side of hard hats. Its other requirements included durability and functionality at the right price point; two other areas where RealWear excelled.

The deployment began in June 2020. SystemActive worked with Mace’s IT team to create a bespoke operating system for the HMT-1, which was tailored so that many of its out-of-the-box features could only be used for collaborating with clients and colleagues who were not physically present on site. Once the operating system was set up, the wearable headsets arrived on site and were ready to use. Training from both RealWear and SystemActive included on-boarding sessions to bring Mace’s personnel up to speed on how to log on to video conferencing and join meetings, and a walkthrough of the functions of the camera and video stream.

“From a health and safety, durability and price perspective, RealWear’s device ticked a lot of boxes. We worked with the senior teams at Mace to ensure the device was as easy as possible for everyone to use and that the bespoke operating system met Mace’s needs. We’re thrilled with the positive feedback from Mace on the deployment and look forward to working with the team in a continued rollout,” added Ross Riley, Head of Immersive, SystemActive.

“RealWear’s HMT-1 is purpose built for productivity, even in extreme environments due to its ruggedness, durability and functionality,” said Jon Arnold, VP of Sales, RealWear Inc. “With software updates to come in March that will further improve the user experience, the HMT-1 is set to be a central part of Mace’s workflow, both now and in the future,” he added.

Based on this level of success, Mace plans to surpass the 150-unit mark over the next few months as it ramps up deployment of RealWear’s HMT-1 globally. The company has recently procured more units to go out to one of its sectors in Peru to help with monitoring of a project and its various phases, including safety inspections. It has also increased awareness through its supply chain who have started to adopt the technology.

Read the original press release and RealWear’s AREA member profile.