Augmented visualization guidance for wire placement in timber fabrication

Abstract

Augmented reality has become a broad area over time, which opens up many opportunities, also for industry. Nevertheless, digital solutions have not yet been used for some industrial applications. We focus on the use case “wire placement in timber fabrication”. The task here is to place and fix a cable along a certain route on a timber panel. However, there are several important factors and risks to consider that could cause the task to fail. Usability and efficiency play an essential role in optimally supporting use cases like this. Furthermore, we hope to make the task of this special industrial use case easier for workers by using augmented reality. For such an optimization, the design of a suitable visualization as part of the augmented reality system is indispensable.

We constructed possible virtual representations for this use case and developed different suitable prototypes. Based on a user study, we compared the visualizations of these prototypes, evaluated their efficiency and user experience by measuring the workload, usability, task completion time, and determining error rates.

By analyzing the developed visualization prototypes, a certain prototype proved to be optimal. With this, the route of the cable is shown as a path on the timber plate and displayed in color. The efficiency differences between this prototype and the other prototypes, supported by augmented reality, are not severe. The use of the augmented reality system turned out to be an essential enrichment. Compared to an equivalent system that is not supported by augmented reality, the developed augmented reality systems showed clear advantages.

The suitability of this prototype has been checked and proven through a dry run. The task of the use case could be carried out successfully while the important factors and risks were also considered. The final fabrication has yet to be carried out.