Collaboration

This use case pertains to AR assistance for two or more people in proximity or at a distance who are interacting with digital assets for the purpose of collaborative design, creation and review.

Prior to AR Adoption

Collaboration is defined as having one or more of the following characteristics:

• Two or more people are communicating in real time
• The participants can see the same information at the same time
• The participants in a session are able to make comments, annotate and edit the shared digital assets
• The shared digital assets are stored where they can be retrieved by one or more users during the session and in the future
• The goals of collaboration include to reach consensus, co-create new digital assets or content or make decisions.

People collaborate in many ways and with a variety of tools. When people in physical proximity collaborate, they use gestures in conjunction with one or more physical models (e.g., scale replicas), or electronic or physical boards (using pens). Collaborating at a distance can be supported through platforms such as WebEx, Google Meet, GoToMeeting or other similar commercial offerings. In these cases, collaborators must use a mouse and/or keyboard to add information or to annotate shared assets. Without AR support, collaborators using shared technological solutions are almost always limited to 2D figures and text. Sometimes video and animations are used to bring a concept “to life” during a session. Alternatively, there are spaces where wearing a Virtual Reality headset, participants can collaborate and co-create using 3D models. In these cases, participants share an entirely digital environment and the objects within it.

Business Challenges AR Introduction Addresses

Collaborative AR use cases address the gap that current collaborative platforms cannot fill if participants in a review, design or problem-solving session need to interact in real time with both the real world and with digital assets. Without AR, users may not be aware of the relative positions of collaborators with respect to the digital assets. With collaborative AR platforms, the participants may be able to reduce or eliminate the time and cost of travel to share a physical place by introducing physical and digital objects into their respective environments.

Use Case with AR

Compared with other use cases, AR for collaboration is a relatively advanced use case, involving not only technologies but users who are trained and have experience with manipulating digital objects in their AR experiences. Prior to a collaborative AR session, digital assets are loaded into a “common” space. The assets that benefit the most from these use cases are 3D models which can be manipulated, modified and annotated in real time. Each participant in a collaborative AR experience is able to interact with the model as well as perceive the live interactions of other participants. The primary addition over using traditional on-line platforms for collaboration is that AR provides “presence” in 3D space. The participants can see where their collaborators are with respect to the digital assets and themselves, offering insights about concerns or new ideas.

Common roles of Users

Any professional who needs to collaborate, review or co-create digital assets

• Designers
• Project managers
• Architects
• Roles that rely on 3D data visualization

Business Benefits:

The benefits of AR-assisted collaboration can be measured primarily in terms of reducing or eliminating the need for two or more users to travel to be in the same physical space to achieve their goals. In addition, there could be benefits due to lower cognitive load, compared to using traditional collaborative platforms, and higher overall satisfaction. The experience of moving around a digital asset while it is digitally presented to multiple users is similar to that produced when a scale model is in the same physical space as users.