Company adds session recording to its industry leading AR knowledge platform and announces continued enterprise customer growth with Becton Dickinson and Lockheed Martin
SAN FRANCISCO and SANTA CLARA, California, May 29, 2019 — Scope AR, the pioneer of enterprise-class augmented reality (AR) solutions, today launched at Augmented World Expo 2019 (AWE) an upgraded version of its highly-touted WorkLink platform. With the addition of session recording, WorkLink becomes the industry’s only AR knowledge platform to offer real-time remote support, access to AR work instructions and the ability to record sessions simultaneously in one application. With this, workers can now easily capture, retain and share knowledge like never before. Scope AR also announced new enterprise customer, medical device manufacturer Becton Dickinson, as well as expanded use of its integrated AR platform with Lockheed Martin.
“This is an exciting time for the AR industry. Adoption is growing and expectations among users are shifting towards more comprehensive, enterprise-ready solutions,” explained Scott Montgomerie, CEO of Scope AR. “With the latest WorkLink platform, we’ve added even more ways for workers to collaborate and quickly get the knowledge they need to successfully do their jobs. With the addition of session recording, businesses can now better capture and retain knowledge for future use and training purposes, while taking compliance, quality assurance and accuracy to the next level.”
The updated WorkLink platform can be customized with varying sets of functionality depending on customers’ needs. It can also be deployed across all major platforms and select industry wearables so organizations can use their device of choice. The platform is built to help make anyone an instant expert with seamless access to a variety of features including:
Session Recording to capture important knowledge delivered during live support video calls for retention, future sharing and new insight into additional training needs and how processes can be improved. Either the technician or remote expert can record a live session so real-time knowledge becomes a reusable asset that can be accessed by others in the future.
WorkLink Assist (formerly known as standalone product, Remote AR) for real-time expert remote assistance
WorkLink Create for quick and easy AR content creation for step-by-step work instructions
Beyond its latest product innovations, Scope AR has also experienced continued customer acquisition and growth on the heels of its $9.7 million Series A funding round in March 2019. Becton Dickinson, an American medical technology company that manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems and reagants, is the newest addition to the company’s already impressive client roster. Becton Dickinson will use WorkLink at the company’s Automation Center for Enablement to deliver AR instructions across the organization.
Additionally, Lockheed Martin is now expanding its use of Scope AR’s technology after its highly successful implementation of WorkLink to improve workforce training and spacecraft manufacturing procedures. They are now deploying Scope AR into all four of their business units across a broad variety of use cases.
Lockheed Martin’s Emerging Technologies Lead Shelley Peterson added,
“Creating AR work instructions with WorkLink has enabled our Space team
to reach unprecedented levels of efficiency and accuracy, as well as
reduced manufacturing training and activity ramp-up time by 85%. Scope
AR’s platform has proven to be so valuable that we have expanded our AR
adoption into even more manufacturing applications within the Space
division, as well as leveraging the technology in other areas of the
business.”
The next-generation of the company’s WorkLink platform is available immediately, and attendees of AWE 2019 can see a demonstration of the new platform at Scope AR’s booth #213. For more information on the upgraded WorkLink application visit: https://www.scopear.com/solutions/worklink-platform/
About Scope AR Scope AR is the pioneer of enterprise-class augmented reality solutions, delivering the industry’s only cross-platform AR tools for getting workers the knowledge they need, when they need it. The company is revolutionizing the way enterprises work and collaborate by offering an integrated AR platform that provides more effective and efficient knowledge-sharing to conduct complex remote tasks, employee training, product and equipment assembly, maintenance and repair, field and customer support, and more. The company’s device-agnostic technology supports smartphones, tablets and wearables, making it easy for leading organizations like Boeing, Toyota, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Assa Abloy, GE and others to quickly scale their use of AR to any remote worker. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco with offices in Edmonton, Canada.
One of the questions we get a lot is “How do we make AR instructions if we don’t have 3D models?”
It’s a valid question. The WorkLink platform was built primarily around the concept that organizations would be leveraging their own products’ CAD models to create augmented reality training and instruction materials. Many of our clients are using it in exactly that way, and having no difficulty in achieving that workflow. If you’re in that category then congratulations! you can probably grab a coffee.
The scenarios where this approach doesn’t fit tend to be in a few general categories
“We need to assist our employees on equipment that is supplied by a vendor”
“The CAD files exist and we own them, but we are struggling to get them released to us”
“This equipment pre-dates our CAD software”
In actuality, most of these scenarios
are likely to be short-lived. Where IP protection is a concern, for
instance, CAD files can be converted and simplified at source to
maximize the value to instruction while minimizing the exposure of
proprietary information. In addition, the very nature of self-authoring
keeps that exposure limited to your internal content authors and a
pre-approved workforce working across a secure network. As the benefits
of AR instruction and assistance become more commonly understood, these
barriers are starting to fall.
In the meantime though, it can be
extremely useful to have techniques for these situations, and we thought
we would share a few, as well as publish a WorkLink project
specifically made with no supplied or ‘made to order’ 3D content
whatsoever as an example. We chose a basic car maintenance example,
commonplace and straightforward, but also a good reference point for
more complex situations.
LESS IS MORE One key thing to understand is that good AR instruction is really about adding as little to the user’s workspace as possible. While movies tend to portray augmented reality as the ability to add as much as possible, the fact is that this doesn’t work well. Our goal is to provide small, but key, additions to the space which will have maximum impact. From this perspective, having complex 3D models of the equipment is actually not beneficial at all. When working on an engine after all, the engine is there. We have no need to reproduce it. For a large variety of processes, arrows, circular beacons, basic tools and simple shapes are all that is needed to communicate everything your user needs to know… Particularly when they are animated effectively and placed exactly where the user needs them. All of these things, along with the ability to place video and images, are provided for your use in the WorkLink platform. For common objects that aren’t included, support for standard file formats makes adding 3rd party content (from public websites etc) a simple process also.
CONTEXT IS KING Under these circumstances, the AR author is still left with one significant challenge. You start your project, secure in the knowledge that you a combination of simple content is more than enough to communicate exactly what your end-user needs to know… as long as they are placed accurately in the workspace. Without a model of your equipment in the scene, how can you place your content? You need a reference framework of some kind… context.
There are a number of strategies for
establishing this framework. One method is to take some key measurements
and create some simple 3D shapes to represent key landmarks in your
work area. This can be effective for straightforward situations, and if
you have ready access to your equipment, some trial and error may be an
acceptable approach. If the area you want to present instructions in is
basically flat (or a series of flat spaces) such as a control panel for
instance, it might also be an option to take photos (carefully, and
square to the camera) and bring those images into your project as
stand-ins. For more complex, demanding projects, it may be worth the
effort to create 3D objects that are more representative of the actual
equipment. 3D models can be created at various levels of detail, and
there is ample middle ground between detailed CAD models and simple
shapes. Although this skill set isn’t available in every organization,
it’s also not particularly challenging or expensive to access. For some
projects it may be worth the relatively small expense of generating some
models for this purpose. This method is particularly important if your
process demands an extended disassembly or assembly process, where
layers of parts are needed.
REALITY CAPTURE For circumstances where the area is more complex, or where access is more challenging, what’s needed is some form of reality capture. This term covers a broad variety of options, but the essence is basically the same… the ability to go into a space and quickly generate a 3D model of it without any particular skills. These models can be extremely useful for providing context, but you will not have the ability to ‘disassemble’ them. These types of models will represent a contiguous surface with no recognition of where one object ends and another begins. Great for providing a reference framework, so you can use it as a map for placing your instruction, but you will likely not show this type of model to your end user.
Here are some of the major options:
Laser Scanning: If you have
access to laser scanning equipment, or your budget allows contracting
these services, this can be an effective way to get a surface model of a
work area.
Photogrammetry: This is
relatively simple process, requiring access to a camera and. Essentially
the process is to take a large number of photographs (>100) of a
work area, from a wide variety of angles and distances, and using
generally inexpensive 3rd party software to generate a textured 3D
model. Results can vary, and depending on the software you may have to
manually scale the resulting model, but this technique can be quite
useful in the right circumstances.
Depth Camera/3D Sensor: This is currently our preferred method.
Utilizing a handheld depth camera, either built into a smartphone, or
as an external accessory to a tablet or smartphone, you can essentially
walk around an area and generate a simple textured 3D model ‘on the
fly’. Formats used are compatible with WorkLink, so you can bring the
model in immediately and use it as a quite accurate reference for
placing content.
Results from all of these methods can
provide workable results, but detail levels vary. The goal here is to
allow a rapid reference framework to be put in place, low detail levels
are entirely acceptable for the less expensive approaches.
TEST DRIVE If you’re interested in this approach, I highly recommend you check out our “A3 Maintenance Demo” using the free WorkLink authoring app. It’s designed to take full advantage of the Microsoft HoloLens, so if you have access to one, definitely use that, but you can download it on any device’s store. Log in as a guest and load the A3 project, then either use a standard Scope AR marker or “Interactive Mode” (on handheld devices) to view it. You can also see this project featured in the video at the top of this post.
The project includes a series of
maintenance instructions designed to be viewed directly on the vehicle
itself. We’ve included some additional content strictly to help
demonstrate the concepts discussed here. The car outline is a commercial
3D model, but is included only to provide context for those viewing the
instructions away from the car, and would not otherwise be needed. The
engine model itself was scanned in about 15 minutes using a smartphone
with a 3D depth camera. Again, when viewing these instructions on the
vehicle itself, this model would not normally be included. We’ve
included it in the demo to show what type of results can be expected
from this sort of process, and also to help viewers understand the
context of these instructions.
Visibility switches (blue spheres)
are provided to allow you to show and hide the various models. Turn off
the car body and engine to view the instructions as they would appear
when seen on the real car.
As you will see, this approach makes for a very effective style of
instruction. For many of our clients, projects like this are the answer
to a difficult question, allowing them to quickly create effective
instructions without the need for a lot of engineering support or
external resources.
For more information on creating AR Work instructions with no coding or previous experience, check out the WorkLink page, or see our Youtube channel, and be sure to keep track of the latest Scope AR news on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with the links below.
Scope AR, the pioneer of enterprise-class augmented reality (AR) solutions, today at Augmented World Expo 2018 (AWE) announced the industry’s first AR platform that offers both real-time remote assistance and access to AR guided smart instructions simultaneously in one application. By combining the functionality of the company’s AR-based live support video calling application, Remote AR, with the company’s AR content creation platform, WorkLink, into one product, organizations can now experience an unprecedented level of support and collaboration.
“The ability for workers to connect in real-time with an expert to get the remote assistance they might need while also having access to rich, animated step-by-step AR instructions in one, unified interface truly has the potential to transform the way people work, while also saving companies valuable time, resources and significant costs,” said Scott Montgomerie, CEO and co-founder of Scope AR. “We are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in AR with products already in use by Fortune 500 companies. With our newly integrated platform, we are thrilled to address a common request we receive and offer our customers an even better AR experience.”
Users will now have immediate access to the best practices and expert knowledge they need to complete complex tasks in the field, shop floor or office. A demo video showcasing the power of the unified solution is available here.
Today at Augmented World Expo (AWE) 2016, Scope AR announced the
launch of WorkLink, the first smart instruction creation tool that
enables non-technical staff to produce highly interactive augmented
reality (AR) instruction and training materials within a complete
platform for data generation, feedback and analytics. WorkLink’s “smart”
step-by-step instructions or training content can then be projected
directly onto the task at hand, empowering end users to become their own
expert without the requirement of extensive training.
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