4 ms·

I completely agree with point 2, and see it validated in what CTO/CIO types are paying attention to. I will further that by saying that there are tangible benef

by abakker 10y ago

I completely agree with point 2, and see it validated in what CTO/CIO types are paying attention to. I will further that by saying that there are tangible benefits in commercial cases that are better than the ones in the consumer space. Consumers have TVs, consoles, and computers. Businesses are looking now for transformative tech to replace systems that are much older and more outdated. For the enterprise case, AR capabilities on the phone are a great and cheap place to start in order to get a HUD view around them. Kludgy solutions like reading QR codes also work fine for their expected use cases - i.e. reading machine states, maintenance records, etc. These solutions solve a mobile interface problem that helps align information retrieval with the context of being out the field looking at a physical object. My personal favorite AR application would be drone operation, though. AR goggle can do two things. They can assist the Remote pilot in command in maintaining a computer aided visual line of sight to the drone. (circling it in red, in your field of view, for example). It also can provide a HUD of the drone's status (battery, altitude, attitude, settings, perceived wind speed, etc.), and finally it can allow you to view an overlay of FPV from the drone to aid in your both maintaining direct LOS to meet Part 107 requirements, and also to ensure that the pilot can be inspecting, aiming, orienting and piloting the drone successfully by relying of FPV input. Those capabilities don't quite exist yet, but I wouldn't doubt that it will be my first AR use case.

edblarney 10y ago
Though industrial applications 'seem' like a natural choice, it's a really tough market. Mostly because the numbers just are not there. Specific industries will want specific versions, specific apps - and without the scale ... it's hard to make money. And although it may 'seem' rational to want to production line workers into a HUD ... the actual, tangible and measurably improvement in productivity may not be that much. Today, if workers need 'data on the fly' they can ref their tablet or mobile. Does a HUD really make such a huge difference that it's worth the cost? That's a real question. So - I think you're right, essentially about the application opportunities, but the business case is really hard for that. The numbers just don't work out very well.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Yeah, this seems like a concern. Already the biggest data/reality hurdle is not visualization but record accuracy - Amazon pickers get quick-and-easy guides to where products are, but face massive delays when something is mislabeled and they have to scan every item in the bin they're directed to. Fancy HUD systems may be worthwhile for a handful of high-end industrial tasks that value time very highly and can justify custom purchases (power plants?), but for most applications boosting accuracy and system usability sounds better than investing in new methods of data access.
  - abakker 10y ago
    I agree; one counter example is that AR might be the catalyst for improvement of an antique process. The Arizona Public Utilities commission (disclosure, my company helped them with this initiative) has replaced paper processes with AR on phones + QR codes. The real value is probably in converting an antique paper-based process with a database, but the AR proved to be the defining interface for their field workers.
- RangerScience 10y ago
  You're correct about it being a tough market, but you (and your commenters) wrong about nearly everything else. It's tough because industrial giants are slow moving, and very particular about certain hard things (reliability and being real, mostly) that are actually hard. To contrast, media companies are fast moving and very particular about expensive things (art and design), but are bloody cheap and don't mind smoke-and-mirrors. This is why consumer AR is hard, but industrial AR is "easier". Source: Early Daqri employee (when marketing apps were the thing), and industrial solutions architect at the same while they had any. (No longer work there) There is a bejeebus amount of money in the industrial sector for these kinds of solutions, although at first glance it might not be clearly "AR", although you would use pretty much exactly the same technology. First up - although there's not a lot of information, the information that IS present is staggeringly decisive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qJ6U-ixX0&feature=youtu.be&list=PLV7deeu6k7SjpDldZJT91sKQg2qyEBYzV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qJ6U-ixX0&feature=youtu.be... http://www.recode.net/2015/6/8/11563374/boeing-says-augmented-reality-can-make-workers-better-faster http://www.recode.net/2015/6/8/11563374/boeing-says-augmente... TL;DR - ~70% time spend with <10% errors made on a first-time assembly task, when using AR instructions vs classic instructions. Gains are (mostly) kept even if you stop using AR on subsequent assemblies. Second up - My favorite anecdote from a boss, about building satellites: Once, while building this $100m+ object, they got to the end and found a left over bolt. They then had to spend a giant chunk of money taking the thing back apart, first to find where that bolt was supposed to go (and put it there), and then to prove that nothing else was missing. If you're doing AR-instructions, not only are you (probably) not going to make that mistake in the first place (>90% error reduction), but you're going to have video records (ideally already in a reality-capture format, rather than just raw feeds) to review instead of an expensive disassembly, to prove nothing else is wrong. This mistake was worth tens of millions, and mistakes of this cost-magnitude are so common they're part of the costing structure. You expect them. As a counter examples to my points, we once looked at document pick-and-place for a document storage company. The value they'd get from the AR, after development and equipment costs were factored in, just didn't make sense. Another company wanted to use AR tech as a replacement for existing industrial quality checks (parts fly by on a conveyer, how do you know if they'd been made correctly?). AFAIK, what they wanted to do is still basically impossible. Finally, there was an ongoing debate as to whether it'd make sense for people building buildings to use industrial AR (everyone? only managers / shift leads / etc?). AFAIK, there are still issues with making that happen, although people are making solid progress. Finally, you're forgetting about the value of a hands-free display; which is an AR headset minus the computer vision; if you've ever spent time in a facility (which is so totally awesome and I miss those trips) it's pretty clear why that's valuable. So you're right about a couple of things - it's still hard, and you still have to run the numbers to see if makes sense for your situation (or which people in your situation) - but you're essentially wrong about the application opportunities, and the numbers usually work out amazingly well. Any questions? Happy to answer what I think I'm allowed to.

by abakker 10y ago

edblarney 10y ago

Though industrial applications 'seem' like a natural choice, it's a really tough market. Mostly because the numbers just are not there. Specific industries will want specific versions, specific apps - and without the scale ... it's hard to make money. And although it may 'seem' rational to want to production line workers into a HUD ... the actual, tangible and measurably improvement in productivity may not be that much. Today, if workers need 'data on the fly' they can ref their tablet or mobile. Does a HUD really make such a huge difference that it's worth the cost? That's a real question. So - I think you're right, essentially about the application opportunities, but the business case is really hard for that. The numbers just don't work out very well.

Bartweiss 10y ago
Yeah, this seems like a concern. Already the biggest data/reality hurdle is not visualization but record accuracy - Amazon pickers get quick-and-easy guides to where products are, but face massive delays when something is mislabeled and they have to scan every item in the bin they're directed to. Fancy HUD systems may be worthwhile for a handful of high-end industrial tasks that value time very highly and can justify custom purchases (power plants?), but for most applications boosting accuracy and system usability sounds better than investing in new methods of data access.
- abakker 10y ago
  I agree; one counter example is that AR might be the catalyst for improvement of an antique process. The Arizona Public Utilities commission (disclosure, my company helped them with this initiative) has replaced paper processes with AR on phones + QR codes. The real value is probably in converting an antique paper-based process with a database, but the AR proved to be the defining interface for their field workers.
RangerScience 10y ago
You're correct about it being a tough market, but you (and your commenters) wrong about nearly everything else. It's tough because industrial giants are slow moving, and very particular about certain hard things (reliability and being real, mostly) that are actually hard. To contrast, media companies are fast moving and very particular about expensive things (art and design), but are bloody cheap and don't mind smoke-and-mirrors. This is why consumer AR is hard, but industrial AR is "easier". Source: Early Daqri employee (when marketing apps were the thing), and industrial solutions architect at the same while they had any. (No longer work there) There is a bejeebus amount of money in the industrial sector for these kinds of solutions, although at first glance it might not be clearly "AR", although you would use pretty much exactly the same technology. First up - although there's not a lot of information, the information that IS present is staggeringly decisive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qJ6U-ixX0&feature=youtu.be&list=PLV7deeu6k7SjpDldZJT91sKQg2qyEBYzV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qJ6U-ixX0&feature=youtu.be... http://www.recode.net/2015/6/8/11563374/boeing-says-augmented-reality-can-make-workers-better-faster http://www.recode.net/2015/6/8/11563374/boeing-says-augmente... TL;DR - ~70% time spend with <10% errors made on a first-time assembly task, when using AR instructions vs classic instructions. Gains are (mostly) kept even if you stop using AR on subsequent assemblies. Second up - My favorite anecdote from a boss, about building satellites: Once, while building this $100m+ object, they got to the end and found a left over bolt. They then had to spend a giant chunk of money taking the thing back apart, first to find where that bolt was supposed to go (and put it there), and then to prove that nothing else was missing. If you're doing AR-instructions, not only are you (probably) not going to make that mistake in the first place (>90% error reduction), but you're going to have video records (ideally already in a reality-capture format, rather than just raw feeds) to review instead of an expensive disassembly, to prove nothing else is wrong. This mistake was worth tens of millions, and mistakes of this cost-magnitude are so common they're part of the costing structure. You expect them. As a counter examples to my points, we once looked at document pick-and-place for a document storage company. The value they'd get from the AR, after development and equipment costs were factored in, just didn't make sense. Another company wanted to use AR tech as a replacement for existing industrial quality checks (parts fly by on a conveyer, how do you know if they'd been made correctly?). AFAIK, what they wanted to do is still basically impossible. Finally, there was an ongoing debate as to whether it'd make sense for people building buildings to use industrial AR (everyone? only managers / shift leads / etc?). AFAIK, there are still issues with making that happen, although people are making solid progress. Finally, you're forgetting about the value of a hands-free display; which is an AR headset minus the computer vision; if you've ever spent time in a facility (which is so totally awesome and I miss those trips) it's pretty clear why that's valuable. So you're right about a couple of things - it's still hard, and you still have to run the numbers to see if makes sense for your situation (or which people in your situation) - but you're essentially wrong about the application opportunities, and the numbers usually work out amazingly well. Any questions? Happy to answer what I think I'm allowed to.