Technology offers industrial applications
It may seem that virtual reality (VR) is the stuff of science fiction and video games—and that’s still essentially true at this point in time. Augmented reality (AR), however, is on the verge of 
becoming an important advancement for industry, particularly in manufacturing and service. A remodeled computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing developer recently demonstrated just how powerful this technology can be.
VR displays a simulated environment in an immersive fashion, usually through a headset display unit that resembles a swimmer’s diving mask with the display replacing the clear lens. VR includes view-orientation and physical-movement sensors so physical movements drive the display, thus forming the connection between the physical and digital worlds. Users can move their hands and fingers to pick up a sword shown in the display, for example, or turn their heads to see what’s behind their avatars, or digital selves.
AR, by comparison, uses much of the same kind of technology but overlays the digital world onto the physical world as a kind of semi-transparent curtain. Once synchronized, AR can place information, drawings, and more on top of the real-world view. That’s what makes this a valuable industrial application.
Technology solutions company PTC demonstrated this technology in January 2016. The demo focused on the service aspect of AR, using the overlay to provide easy-to-understand, graphical instructions for disassembling a piece of equipment and completing a repair. To use the AR solution, the worker dons the viewer, accesses the work order or task list, and then simply looks through the graphic display at the piece of equipment to be repaired. The viewer lays the graphical instructions over the real object and demonstrates the needed actions. This helps facilitate training and ensures greater efficiency and quality of the repair work.
As impressive as this was, perhaps the most important announcement—and the one that brings this technology into the real world of real companies—is the ecosystem that PTC has developed and released around AR. It includes a drag-and-drop toolset for building the graphical displays, compatibility with commonly used authoring and design packages to support easy conversion of traditional instruction manuals and existing CAD drawings into source material for the displays, and even a special browser and markup language designed to facilitate this conversion. Many companies can produce a slick demo using professional graphics tools. This ecosystem makes the AR approach practical for product designers and manufacturers.
Service is just one potential area for AR technology. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the unlimited possibilities for other business uses, such as reducing training timelines, speeding up new product or process introductions, improving quality in factory operations, enhancing customer benefit by providing better documentation and use instructions, demonstrating product and operation features—the list goes on and on.
Other developers also are experimenting with AR technology and releasing hardware and software for a variety of functions. As the technology develops, new ecosystems and toolsets will contend for primacy. In the end, there likely will be two or three functional and attractive environments competing for market share and acceptance as the industry standards.
PTC has an early-player advantage but will be seeing strong competition from industry heavyweights including Sony, Samsung, and Google. Early adopters can generate great benefits from AR and, by doing so, help their selected suppliers establish themselves and their toolsets as viable candidates for the industry standard.
Enterprise Insights by Dave Turbide, reprinted with permission from APICS magazine | May/June 2016