Visualizing Complex Data in Augmented Reality
Tokyo based mixed reality company HoloLab leverages XR streaming technology to meet the requirements of customers in manufacturing and the AEC market.
HoloLab: BIM and CAD Visualization in AR for AEC Customers
Architecture, engineering and construction professionals increasingly rely on AR to review and verify complex 3D data on-site. But BIM models, CAD assemblies and point clouds quickly exceed what mobile AR devices can render locally. HoloLab integrated Hololight's XR streaming SDK into their SaaS platform mixpace to remove that constraint entirely.
- Organization: HoloLab — Tokyo-based mixed reality company and developer of mixpace
- Challenge: Visualizing large BIM, CAD and point cloud models in AR on mobile devices without performance degradation, instability or crashes.
- Solution: Hololight's XR streaming SDK integrated into mixpace, offloading rendering to local servers or the cloud.
- Result: Models previously impossible to render on mobile AR devices — including a 5,000,000-polygon 3D mesh and a 25,000,000-point point cloud — visualized fluidly in AR.
Augmented reality has become an established part of workflows across the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. The technology provides design and construction professionals with realistic, detailed views into ongoing projects. However, visualizing complex data such as 3D CAD, Building Information Modeling (BIM) or point cloud models on mobile AR devices presents a challenge.
The HoloLab founding team (CR: HoloLab)
"Our customers often want us to render entire buildings or complex plants and pipe systems — not knowing that the local rendering capacity of a mobile AR device is very limited," said Takesen — Takehisa Ito, Co-Founder and COO of HoloLab. The Japanese company has developed the cloud-based SaaS solution mixpace, which provides a precise 3D reviewing process of 3D CAD, BIM, and point cloud models in augmented reality. Size and complexity of the content can lead to unstable rendering, jittering motion, lower fps, and an unacceptable user experience or software crashes.
“Before integrating the XR streaming Hololight Stream, we needed to align customer needs to the performance limitations of mobile computing devices.” Takesen – Takehisa Ito, Co-Founder and COO of HoloLab
Surpassing the Limitation of Mobile Computing
HoloLab's general construction and civil engineering customers seek out AR viewing tools for improved design review and construction verification. For example, they may want to overlay BIM and 3D CAD files to ensure the proper placement of walls, beams, or pipes. Point clouds, datasets that precisely represent objects and space based on photogrammetry or drone photography, have also become important data resources for retrofitting and reconstruction.
"We have found a technology that enables us to support these kinds of large data," Takesen commented. HoloLab integrated the XR streaming solution Hololight Stream by fellow extended reality company Hololight. Hololight Stream is a software development kit that enables real-time streaming of entire AR and VR applications via powerful servers or the cloud to all major AR headsets and mobile devices. "Implementing Hololight Stream in Unity is extremely simple," said Takesen. "It took us less than 20 minutes." Outsourcing the rendering process brings potentially unlimited performance for HoloLab and its customers, enabling the experience of 3D content in unprecedented detail and complexity.
High Visual Quality and Data Security
"XR streaming has become the standard approach for AR and VR developers working with data-heavy applications. In using the technology in an impressive way, companies like HoloLab are advocates in helping customers see the difference between local and remote rendering," affirmed Philipp Landgraf, Senior Director of XR Streaming at Hololight. HoloLab, for example, was able to visualize with Hololight Stream 3D mesh data of the Shuri Castle with around 5,000,000 polygons as well as an even larger point cloud with around 25,000,000 points of the Miyakonojo Civic Center.
Many of HoloLab's customers also rely heavily on on-premises solutions because of asset management and data security reasons. With Hololight Stream, HoloLab is free to decide — according to the customer's needs — whether the application is running on a local workstation, on-premises server infrastructure or in the cloud. Confidential data is also only streamed and not stored locally on an AR device. Potential data privacy problems and entry points for security vulnerabilities can thus be prevented.
XR Streaming Benefits
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HoloLab is now able to visualize their customers' models that are only suited for high-performance processing, enabling a level of spatial analytics in augmented reality that was previously out of reach for mobile devices. Streaming the whole application also allows all basic app operations like interactions and user interfaces — just as the app would run on the mobile device itself. Asked about the benefits of choosing Hololight Stream as the XR streaming solution, HoloLab Co-Founder Takesen Ito reiterated:
- Flexible on-premises and cloud support according to customer needs
- Uncompromized data security as 3D data is streamed and not stored on the end device
- Ease of use through one provided client app
- Seamless integration in Unity
- Point cloud rendering support
From Potential to Reality
XR streaming is the solution to surpass the limitation of mobile computing and visualize large and complex 3D data in augmented reality. "We are talking to a lot of customers about the possibilities of XR streaming in conjunction with 5G. We want to propose Hololight Stream to Japanese 5G carriers as the remote rendering solution," Takesen disclosed.
“The low latency and high bandwidth that 5G brings is crucial in making higher quality experiences available to a broader audience. We will have a lot more XR streaming opportunities ahead.” Takesen – Takehisa Ito, Co-Founder and COO of HoloLab
Since this collaboration, 5G-enabled XR streaming has moved from a forward-looking ambition to a deployable reality. See how Hololight and Deutsche Telekom achieved stable, low-latency XR streaming over public 5G networks using L4S.
Read: Deutsche Telekom and Hololight Enable XR Streaming Beyond Wi-Fi