ARtwin: Building a Sovereign AR Cloud for Europe | EU Horizon 2020

The EU 2020 Horizon Project ARtwin (Ref.No.856994) aimed at providing the European Industry and Construction 4.0 ecosystem with a sovereign cloud platform. This way a digital twin of a factory or a building could be maintained in real time. Hololight contributed to the AR cloud with its XR streaming technology.  

Augmented Reality increases productivity significantly and fosters quality improvements. Nevertheless, there were still difficulties to overcome when it came to large-scale deployments. Operational dynamic environments exposed to variable lighting conditions may set limitations to efficient AR roll-outs.

In order to overcome this barrier, Google, Microsoft and Apple are building a 3D map of the environment in the cloud. The map can be updated and shared by any AR device. It allows collaborative AR experiences as well as more robust and accurate 3D registrations.

Unfortunately, the early-stage ARCloud implementations do not fully meet industry and construction 4.0 requirements and European players may face a lock-in situation if no sovereign solution is proposed to them. ARtwin aimed to provide European Industry and Construction 4.0 with an ARCloud platform that meets their needs.

Remote Rendering as Decisive Puzzle Piece  

Complex visualizations such as a Building Information Model (BIM) can only be carried out with ultra-low latency by means of an additional computing source. Therefore, the envisaged solution was deployed on a distant private or edge cloud, ensuring the privacy of information. Hololight's XR streaming technology plays a central role here — enabling high-polygon content to be visualized with every detail in real size.

The BIM visualization use case ARtwin explored in a research context is now demonstrated in practice. See how HoloLab uses Hololight's XR streaming technology to visualize BIM and point cloud data in AR for AEC customers.

Benefits of the ARtwin 

On the construction site, it might look like this: construction workers receive all the necessary information about the tasks they undertake and feedback from their supervisors. Construction managers are enabled to detect construction defects at a very early stage. Furthermore, they could even compute the construction process.

Conclusion  

A sovereign AR cloud platform will finally break down an important barrier which stands in the way of AR deployment.