" Virtual Plant Tour" Use Case Feasibility

[azoorob3]

Hello,

We are currently thinking of potentially using Vuforia for implementing a "Virtual Plant Tour" use case for a factory that is currently being built.

The idea is that we want someone to be able to tour the future state of the factory with all lines and machines, even before they are physically installed. Our intended use case is that user would wear a hololens, walk around the currently empty physical space, but be able to see the productions lines and machines that will be there in the future. We will have CAD models for all of the lines and machines. 

Is this a realistic use case to implement? I'm worried about how "seamless" the experience would be, and how difficult it would be to maintain spatial awareness as one is walking around the plant.  Would we need to have multiple thingmarks scattered about, or is there anyway to achieve this as one continuous experience?

Thanks so much!

Andrew

[mmarkenson]

Hey Andrew,

Interesting use case! The spatial awarness part is going to be key. The hololens has robust spatial tracking using its 4 cameras. You might be able to get away with using a ThingMark to establish the initial location of the device but depending on how big the factory is the experience might start to drift.

How large is the factory? Also out of curiosity who will be viewing this factory tour?

This would make a great use case for Vuforia Area Target, a feature we are starting to look to bring into Studio 🙂

[azoorob3]

Thanks so much for your response.

It's encouraging to hear that we might be able to accomplish this with just an initial ThingMark, or maybe a few Thing Marks, (one for each main area of the plant perhaps), enabled by the robust spatial capabilities of the HoloLens.

As you also mentioned, this definitely seems like it would make a fantastic use case for Vuforia Area Target, so it will be really exciting to see how we can leverage that once it's finally brought into studio.

To answer your questions, the factory is more than 100,000 sq ft so it is fairly large. The intended audience for the "virtual" factory tour are prospective customers of the plant.

Thanks again for all of your insight and perspective, I really appreciate it!

Regards,

Andrew

[JL_18346]

Hi,

I created a Hololens experience of a bedroom with a closet and a full bath using a "spatial" target.  No where near a factory-size space.

The experience allowed a user to walk around and investigate the space.  Perhaps you could create separate AR experiences for different parts of the factory.