Problem Description

The objective of this use case is to attach information in the form of texts, images and sketches to real objects by means of “virtual pins”. In this way, all staff members of an industrial production facility are to be given a way of marking maintenance requirements or abnormalities on a machine via smartphone in an easy and contactless manner. By means of their smartphone or AR glasses, all employees can see the attached notes (regardless of the platform used) which are located in the same position for every user. This allows for efficient communication between production and maintenance staff as the problem can be permanently marked and described directly on location.

Implementation

The cross-platform Augmented Reality framework “Azure Spatial Anchors” was used for the implementation of the app. It offers the possibility to place anchors in the room which permanently maintain their position even if the environment changes slightly. The anchor points are stored in the Azure Cloud, so that they can be found from any device. In this context, however, Microsoft receives no images but only arrangements of “feature points” that allow for the optical recognition of the environment without providing conclusions as to the actual image. The actual information concerning an anchor point can be stored internally in order to minimise data protection concerns.

In order to reduce the number of anchor points searched and to improve the distinction between optically very similar environments, an additional localisation function has been implemented. Localisation is possible either via Bluetooth Beacons or through the scanning of QR codes. Determining the position via Bluetooth offers higher user convenience as it is automatically carried out in the background. QR codes, on the other hand, can be easily and quickly installed, which facilitates getting started.