Currently the application will only handle small files and is primarily web-based, so there are still limitations. However, kudos to Mr. Keough for being the first to provide a solution with such tremendous potential.

Having the ability to access Building Information Models on portable devices will someday allow facility managers to easily identify issues, create work orders, and aid in critical response by using Augmented Reality. During the construction phase of a new project, contractors will be able to walk through a site with their iPhone, Android or iPad and see any phase of the project overlaid on the portable device using the its digital camera. The benefits and possibilities are endless.

BIMable will be keeping a close watch on this technology and will post updates as it matures. In the meantime, be sure to congratulate Mr. Keough and provide input on his contribution to the industry.

In 2002, to experience augmented reality was to lash 26 pounds of equipment to your body and hobble waywardly within the confines of predefined area. In 2010, you can augment the entire world with a free app for your smartphone.

This shot of the Columbia University’s Mobile Augmented Reality System(MARS) comes from a PopSci story written 10 Februaries ago. (The magazine’s searchable archives just went online.) This right around the time that augmented reality had made the jump from esoteric sci-fi concept to actual thing, albeit in the form of awkward research projects and simplistic military applications:

If you strap on this rig, as [the writer] had, you begin to understand the profound possibilities of an AR system, which can superimpose computer-generated text, graphics, 3D animation, sound, or any other or any other digitized data on the real world.

As much as modern smartphone apps like Layar actually do more—they’re connected to the internet constantly, for one—they still don’t meet one of the core criteria of the augmented reality concept: they’re not glasses. In other words, you’ve got to hold your smartphone out in front of you, as if you’re taking a video at all times, which is as obnoxious as it is exhausting to your upper arms. So it’s not quite sci-fi.

But it’s a far sight closer than we’ve ever come before. [PopSci]

Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at jherrman@gizmodo.com.

The latest talk of the town in the Apple blogosphere is 3D head-tracking. Apple recently filed a patent for technology that allows users to change perspective of an object by moving their head or body. So instead of dragging your mouse to rotate a graph or chart, you simply look behind it; a more intuitive approach (at least in the eyes of Apple engineers). Here’s a quick video of how this could be used to view 3D construction plans:

With all the attention augmented reality is getting, we’re not surprised to see big players like Apple experimenting with this genre of technology. Novelty aside, there seems to be endless applications. We think the technology would be great for the construction industry. Combined with construction software, contractors could use it to visualize complex construction projects, like the example above which uses 3D building models from Synchro software.

Rumor has it the technology could also be used with more traditional 2D images like electronic building plans (i.e. digital blueprints). Using the iSight camera to detect head movement, users could potentially scroll up and down or left and right by moving their head.

We’d like to see this work with takeoff and estimating software, a system that allows contractors to measure areas and lengths to determine quantities of construction materials (e.g. how many 2×4s are needed to build a wall). This is currently accomplished by tracing an electronic plan with a mouse or digital pen. Could the same activity be performed with a head nod?

It’s probably a few years before any of this technology trickles down to the construction industry. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on other ways – and other industries – that this could be used with.

Imagine walking down the street, looking for somewhere to eat. You use your phone to photograph a restaurant, and the overlay on the screen shows you menu items pulled from the restaurant’s online menu, reviews from newspapers and so forth.

Science fiction? No, this is available right now from a startup called Layar (www.layar.com), with content from Yellow Pages, Google, Flickr and Wikipedia.

Modern smartphones, such as iPhones and Google Android devices, can determine their own location through GPS and an internal compass, they can download data through mobile broadband connections and they have reasonably powerful graphics-processing capabilities. These provide the necessary ingredients for mobile augmented reality.

While consumer applications have come first, the possibilities are endless for retail, medicine, education, engineering and construction. Imagine standing at a construction site, viewing it with the wireframe model overlaid. What value would that have for the client or in planning submission or public consultation? Imagine being able to click on a balcony four floors up and get the flat’s information — number of bedrooms, sales cost, floor plan, the environmental specifications. And being able to “view” the shadows of buildings play across the plot and any existing buildings through a time-lapsed year — what would that be worth?

This is far better than either a traditional CGI or expensive physical models. As nice as they are, CGIs and models do not place the viewer in the site; they do not have context and relevance. But visualizing the building in its real position — albeit a muddy field — will speak volumes.

By blending augmented reality with local social media sites — blogs and wikis set up to allow comment on new developments, one could obtain residents’ comments, images and questions about the design, resulting in a very interactive and pertinent consultation.

During construction, site visits could be augmented by being able to view the actual versus the planned in 3D while at the site —simply point your phone at the building and see the actual and the digital overlaid.

Post-construction, facilities management and maintenance could walk round the finished building, being able to “click” on the building components and getting specifications, data, construction methods, or being able to control the elements — HVAC, security, fire, lift logic and so forth. This would be further enhanced by the use of BIM (building information model) cad tools and software in the design process.

The possibilities for this “new” technology are constrained only by our own visions of use of technology and the hardware with which to support it. At the moment, companies are nibbling at the edges of the technology, with no commercial products yet on the market. But with all the opportunities out there it is surely only a matter of time before someone grasps the mantle.

The lowdown on augmented reality

What is it?
An interactive experience based on the overlaying of digital information onto real world imagery in real time. A mix of computer graphics and live video, if you will.

Think, for example, of a sports clip with an overlay showing the direction and trajectory of the ball.

The beauty of augmented reality is that the user can interact with the digital component, accessing and changing the information displayed.

Why are you hearing about it now?
Giant leaps in mobile technology mean that many of us are now walking around with mini-computers in our pockets. All of a sudden, there are exciting possibilities for working applications that don’t cost the earth.

Want to try it now?
Start with Wikitude — available for iPhones and Google Android devices. It overlays Wikipedia information onto an image of what you are looking at on your phone. Also check out Layar (www.layar.com) or Google Goggles (www.google.com/mobile/goggles)

Postscript :
Simon Johns is an IT consultant and former director of IT at Broadway Malyan.
Visit his website at since68.wordpress.com

Competence

Mixed Reality denotes generally different visualisation means between Reality and Virtuality, enabled by 3D computer graphics. On one hand, Virtual Reality (VR) means completely 3D modelled representation of real world, while Augmented Reality (AR) stands for superimposing virtual objects in the user’s view of the real world.

The work by VTT’s Virtual Reality research dates back to the year 1995 when a virtual training simulator was developed for printing industries. After that various VR solutions have been developed for building and construction applications, space applications, and terrain visualisation. VTT’s special assets in VR include e.g. scalable Open Scene Graph (OSG) based viewer implementation, up to immersive CAVE type environments. We also develop application software and browser based solutions for the management and visualisation of various types of contents (text, graphics, images, video, 3D models, etc.). We are specialised in interactive management and visualisation of complex datasets.

VTT’s Augmented Reality team started developing virtual advertisements for live TV broadcast in year 2000 and, a little later, AR games and entertainment applications. Currently, our research focus is on architecture/construction and interior design, as well as industrial applications at production sites. Furthermore, we are proud of being able to adopt many complex video processing and AR ideas for low-level mobile platforms, e.g. camera phones, in which the processing power and transmission bandwidths are scarce resources. Today, Augmented Reality is applied more generally as part of Mixed Reality technology, bridging the digital and physical worlds with two-way interaction. Different kinds of Virtual Worlds, and Mirror Worlds as counterparts to real environments, provide natural means to implement such interactions.

Challenges

• Marker tracking – accuracy, distance, lighting, etc.
• Markerless tracking – feature / template / model based
• Sensors – accelerometer, compass, GPS, other positioning, sensor fusion
• Content creation – easily and economically, from industrial systems and by users
• 3D/VR model formats – in industry, construction, entertainment, art and digital media
• Mobile processing – memory, speed, 3D graphics on UMPCs and camera phones
• Visualisation – HMDs, PCs, projector screens, large displays, VEs
• Processing power – memory, speed, 3D graphics

Solutions

AR applications

• ALVAR – A Library for Virtual and Augmented Reality
• AROnSite – outdoors visualization based on GPS and Google Earth
• ARMobile – multi-marker based augmented large scale visualization
• ARScaleModel – interaction with virtual 3D model on conference table
• ARInteriors – digital photo based augmented furniture and interior design
• ARCatalogue – printed media in augmented 3D format
• ARPhone – augmented reality on Symbian camera phones
• CamBall – augmented table tennis game over the Internet
• SymBall – camera driven table tennis game on mobile phones

VR visualisation solutions

• Katve – advanced virtual room with 4 rear projection stereo walls
• MobiTrix – mobile stereoscopic rear projection system
• PC based active and passive stereo visualisation systems
• Interaction devices, including tracking devices and data gloves
• Semi automatic 3D terrain visualisation
• IFC visualisation and collaboration technologies
• 4D visualisation of IFC models in building projects

See further information in Publications, Projects and Videos on VTT’s website at http://www.vtt.fi/?lang=en.

References and merits

Part of VTT’s global G+ competence Virtual Products and Production Processes

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