Page 73 - Kaleidoscope Academic Conference Proceedings 2022

A FRAMEWORK FOR THE
DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
OF A MULTI-VARIANT AUGMENTED REALITY APPLICATION

1
Sophie Westfahl ; Dany Meyer-Renner ; Antoine Bagula
1
2
1 University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany
2 University of the Western Cape, South Africa

ABSTRACT or in their infancy stage. This paper’s aim is to fill this gap by
proposing a framework for the design and implementation of
Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the key technologies of the AR applications with multiple models and variants.
fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and plays an increasingly
important role in many companies. However, while the The main contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, we
demand for new AR applications is rapidly increasing, propose an AR development process that describes the key
fundamental best practices and frameworks for the industrial steps needed for the design of a model-based AR application
AR sector are still scarce or in their infancy stage. This and its implementation with Unity [1] and Vuforia [2].
paper addresses this gap by proposing a framework for the Secondly, a multilayer orchestration model that describes the
design and efficient implementation of AR applications with different interactions between a user plane and a server plane
multiple models and variants. The proposed framework is of a multi-variant AR ecosystem is proposed. Lastly, the
built around: i) a development process that describes the evaluation of an AR implementation is presented as a use
different steps for the design of a model-based AR application case showcasing how a real car’s main features and
and its implementation with Unity and Vuforia model targets; functionalities can be visualized with virtual animations and
and ii) a multilayer orchestration model that describes the textual annotations to the main parts as augmented
different interactions between a user and a server layer. The instructions. The remainder of this paper is as follows.
proposed framework is successfully implemented, and its Section 2 reports on related work while Section 3 presents the
performance analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methodology used, and Section 4 proposes a generic approach
evaluation based on the Brooke’s System Usability Scale. for the design and implementation of a model-based AR
prototype with Unity and Vuforia. Section 5 focuses on the
Keywords - Complexity of variants, industrial augmented design and implementation for a complexity of variants. The
reality, model-based tracking, unity, Vuforia performance analysis of the proposed framework including a
qualitative and quantitative evaluation is presented in
1. INTRODUCTION Section 6. Section 7 presents a few lessons learned from the
research work and Section 8 concludes the paper with a short
Immersive technologies play an important role in the fourth discussion and subsequent summary.
Industrial Revolution (4IR). While Virtual Reality (VR)
simulates a virtual world, Augmented Reality (AR) creates a 2. RELATED WORK
highly visual, context-sensitive and interactive environment
that extends the “real” physical world with virtual elements. The use of AR in the industrial sector is steadily increasing
The world is becoming increasingly complex and and deployed more and more in service, manufacturing, sales
technologically focused, with most companies aiming to and marketing, design, operation and training. However,
integrate trending technologies into their products. Among while plenty of developed use cases have been described by
these technologies, AR is gaining momentum, especially in different authors [3], [4], [5], most of the AR literature refers
the industrial sector due to its innovative and competitive to specific applications. Only a few exceptions provide
way of presenting information and enhancing the customer’s general and fundamental approaches for development, but
experience. Moreover, as many companies are exposed to there is no approach for an implementation for multi-variant
AR for the first time, fundamental approaches, best practices use cases. Linowes and Babilinski give an introduction to
and frameworks for its development are tools which are AR and present the development with Unity, Vuforia and
increasingly needed by the industry. This need, for example, other frameworks. Furthermore, they introduce different
is illustrated by the automotive sector where AR is recognition targeting methods and major concepts for AR
increasingly being used in both the manufacturing and development in different areas [6]. Liull et al. provides
maintenance operations. However, these tools are still scarce a step-by-step approach for developing an image-based AR

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