[Editorial Note: from June 2018, the AR app referred to in this blog is now known on all app stores as Vuforia View]:
Thanks to Monash Motorsport (MMS) for the invitation to their 2017 Launch last week.
The team at LEAP is proud to be a long-standing partner of the MMS team, and we were excited to work with them this year to deliver a new Augmented Reality (AR) experience to help showcase their M17-C and M17-E cars on launch night, and also use AR to highlight components on the car from key sponsors.
On launch night, we were able to showcase these AR experiences using the Microsoft Hololens (see video below), plus provide a take-away AR experience on a flyer for all attendees to use with their phones/tablets.
Try the MMS AR experience for yourself: We have recently updated these AR experiences to provide better visualisations when viewed on either a horizontal or vertical screens (you can choose upon startup).
Here are instructions on how to experience the MMS 2017 cars in AR for yourself using the free Thingworx View app [Note: from June 2018, this app is now known on all app stores as Vuforia View]:
While many of the students were fairly new to AR, they were already very familiar with VR and were quick to identify the benefits of AR in overlaying digital information on the real-world. We were also impressed by how quickly the students came up with possible use cases of AR within the team! These ideas ranged from viewing IoT sensor data in-context, through to use in design reviews/collaboration between sub-section groups. For Launch Night, it was decided to focus our AR experience on two areas:
- 3D visualisation of unseen details of the new M17-C and M17-E race cars
- After all, these new cars were the stars of the show! It was expected that after the initial unveiling, the 200+ strong crowd would be congregating around the real-life cars making access difficult – hence, AR could be used to showcase details of the new cars that were not easily seen by everyone in the packed crowd.
- Unseen details: AR was also used cleverly to display external panels as semi-transparent – hence showing details underneath that were hidden or inaccessible on the real cars
- Showcase sponsor contributions – highlighting key components
- As a value-add to MMS key sponsors, an extra layer was added to the AR experience to acknowledge key sponsors who supply or manufacture key components – as you click on various sponsor logos in the AR app, the viewer sees relevant components highlighted.
- This part of the AR app also has benefits to the younger team members – it is always useful for the entire team to correctly understand the contributions made by your key sponsors!
What does the future hold?
Ideas abound, so let’s start brainstorming! At LEAP, we can immediately see many use cases of AR which bring value to F-SAE teams, covering diverse areas such as:
- Sales and marketing – team business presentations – easily toggling between multiple car configurations
- R&D / collaboration / design review meetings – convey complex concepts and discuss car performance (incorporating results of simulation for non-technical colleagues)
- Training new team members for maintenance and manufacturing operations
- Sponsor interactions – customised to suit individual sponsors
Feel free to suggest more ideas on how AR could be used in the comments below!
Below is a link to the team’s recording of the presentation by Paras Bhutiani from MMS on the night: thanks Paras for your generous introduction and kind comments on the LEAP/MMS partnership!
For more info on PTC’s AR technology, click through to our website here: https://www.leapaust.com.au/augmentedreality/ or contact us for a discussion of your upcoming projects: https://www.leapaust.com.au/
Also thanks to Bensounds.com for the music used in parts of the video above.