Digital Twin

Augmented reality applications move to the cloud

The Fraunhofer Institute has developed a technology to run augmented reality applications as software-as-a-service in the cloud. One of the first users is Siemens AG, which uses it to create digital twins for its electric drive systems.

Archive 9 Mar 2019 Roland Freist
HMI-ID02-076rf_FraunhoferIGD_Siemens
Augmented reality applications move to the cloud (Photo: Fraunhofer IGD & Siemens AG)

The Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt has created the possibility of running computationally complex augmented reality (AR) applications in a cloud environment. To do so they integrated the interactive 3D visualization platform instant3Dhub into VisionLib tracking technology. While the CAD data for technical components, for example, remains in the data center's IT infrastructure, only the data required for visualization is transferred to the clients, such as mobile devices. The decisive factor in the process was the new release of instant3Dhub, allowing large amounts of data to be displayed automatically and in real time, regardless of the device used (AR glasses, tablet or smartphone). The AR tracking library VisionLib is responsible for capturing the objects in 3D and preparing them for AR visualization.

Siemens AG is already using the process in its electrical drive technology. A CAD data set with all the product specifications exists as a digital twin for each of the customer-specific drive systems. The instant3Dhub allows Siemens to ensure that AR applications located on customer and manufacturer premises can access the CAD model in a cloud-based and automated manner.

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