Founded in 2017, Wunschsicht GmbH is a Swiss-based AR solutions provider led by Lukas Zimmerli. Wunschsicht is taking a novel approach that Zimmerli hopes will open the AR market to more small companies. We spoke with Lukas Zimmerli recently to learn more.

AREA: Tell us how you became involved in Augmented Reality.

Zimmerli: After earning my diploma from ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, I went to Barcelona to work on my first Mixed Reality project. In 2007, I came back to ETH Zurich for my PhD, exploring how Virtual Reality can be used to motivate stroke and spinal cord injured patients during motor rehabilitation. In 2015, I then went to Swisscom, the biggest telecommunication company in Switzerland. As team lead for mobile apps and Augmented Reality, my team and I developed AR experiences for the larger enterprise customers of Swisscom. After two years, I decided to start my own AR company in November of 2017.

AREA: Are you focusing on particular vertical industries or niches in the business?

Zimmerli: We’re exploring all opportunities to start, especially concentrating on the German-speaking market (Switzerland, Germany, and potentially Austria). We recently released our first product called insight, which allows companies to easily create AR-enabled digital instruction manuals, enabling their employees with skills they might not have. It’s a device-independent solution that allows companies to quickly get a first impression on how AR might help them.

AREA: So the idea is to show people what the capabilities are, then work with them to tailor it to their specific needs.

Zimmerli: Right, because we believe that this approach allows small companies to quickly get a first experience of what AR could do to help them without having to invest a huge amount of money for a tailored proof of concept.

AREA: What’s the market for AR solutions like in Switzerland?

Zimmerli: There is a push in the country to get Swiss companies to adopt digital strategies and AR is definitely one part of it, although AI and IoT at the moment have a bigger audience. Many companies I have approached are however saying they are looking into AR and are open to learning about the advantages.

AREA: What do you hope to get from your membership in the AREA?

Zimmerli: As a startup, we are hoping to talk to and learn from companies that have already been in the field for a long time and vice versa to inspire them. We’re also interested in actively participating in shaping how AR is deployed in enterprises. Certainly, we also hope to find opportunities to collaborate with other companies.

AREA: Are you planning to participate in any of the AREA committees?

Zimmerli: We’d like to begin by participating in the research and marketing committees.

What is the AREA doing to foster the adoption of Augmented Reality in the enterprise? What kinds of benefits are AREA member organizations beginning to realize from their AR deployments? AREA Executive Director Mark Sage provided the answers to these and other questions in a video interview by TechTV at the AR & VR World conference at the TechXLR8 event in London in mid-June. Watch the interview here.

Many enterprises are experimenting with AR pilot projects – and learning a great deal from the effort. But that’s only the first step in the learning process. A whole new set of questions and challenges emerge when you take an AR project from stand-alone pilot to real-life enterprise implementation.

What common obstacles arise? What new opportunities present themselves? How does an AR solution integrate with other enterprise systems? We’ll be exploring these and other questions on July 11^th (10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/6 pm UK/7 pm CET) when we host our next free AREA webinar, Overcoming the Challenges of Implementing AR.

The session will feature three AREA members and top experts in Enterprise AR: Geof Wheelwright, Director of Marketing Communications at Atheer; Peter Orban, Chief Commercial Officer at Augmate; and David Shackleton, Sales Director at Theorem Solutions.

You’ll learn about:

• The business and technical challenges of implementing new interaction paradigms
• How AR solutions can interact with collaboration systems and mobile device management solutions
• Security best practices for AR solutions
• And more!

If you’re looking ahead to an Enterprise AR implementation, you won’t want to miss this one. Join us on Tuesday, July 11^th at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/6 pm UK/7 pm CET. Click here to register now

You’ve heard about the “promise” of Enterprise Augmented Reality. You’ve read about exciting pilot deployments. Perhaps you’ve seen reports of significant ROI. As you contemplate your AR future, it’s time to go from “what if?” to “what now?”

Our free webinar on July 18^th is designed to help you do just that. Entitled How You Can Benefit from Enterprise Augmented Reality, the session will be led by two experts with real-world Enterprise AR experience: Michael Campbell, PTC’s EVP of Augmented Reality Products; and Beth Scicchitano, the AR lead at Newport News Shipbuilding.

You’ll learn:

• The real benefits to be gained from Enterprise AR
• What industries and problems are best suited for AR solutions
• How AR creates value
• How to overcome typical challenges
• How to get your AR strategy off on the right foot

If you’re ready to get real about Enterprise AR, our webinar is ready to show you the way. It’s all happening Tuesday, July 18^th at 9 am EDT (6 am PDT/2 pm UK/3 pm CEST). Click here to sign up now!

The primary reason for – and the ultimate test of – any AR solution is its return on investment (ROI). Yet when large organizations attempt to conduct ROI analyses on emerging technologies like Augmented Reality, they often encounter obstacles and unknown variables.

With its AR ROI Calculator, the AREA has taken the lead in helping enterprises quantify the benefits of AR solutions. On May 23^rd, we’re taking the next step by hosting a free webinar, How Does AR Impact Your Organization’s Bottom Line?

AREA members Paul Davies, President of the AREA and Boeing Associate Technical Fellow, and Jay Kim, AREA VP of Provider segment and Upskill Chief Strategy Officer, will share their respective experiences with ROI and discuss how the AREA’s members-only research offers strategic value to their companies.

The AREA research ROI report was prepared by Chris Ambrosio from Strategy Analytics, under contract with the AREA. Mr. Ambrosio will also be on the webinar to explore how to overcome major hurdles when assessing the impacts of AR on a company’s performance and to demonstrate the AREA AR ROI Calculator.

It’s a webinar anyone seeking to pursue AR will not want to miss. Click here to sign up now.

The AREA is the only global, membership-funded non-profit alliance dedicated to helping accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Augmented Reality worldwide.. As such, we believe our value is greatly enhanced as our membership becomes more diverse by industry and geography. To that end, the AREA is taking steps to expand its geographical reach and representation by recruiting AREA-authorized representatives in key regions to present the AREA and the benefits of membership throughout the world. The first of these AREA agents, Singapore-based Loh Mun Yew, has recently joined the organization. We reached out to him to learn more about his background and his plans.

AREA: Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional background?

MUN YEW: I’m an engineering graduate who has worked in the infocomms and media industry in Singapore and South-East Asia for close to two decades. Most recently, I worked for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, a government agency looking after the regulation and development of the infocomm and media industry in Singapore.

AREA: What do you hope to accomplish as the AREA agent in the APAC region?

MUN YEW: My goal is to leverage my established network and government connections to contribute to the growth and development of enterprise AR in Singapore and the region. That means both encouraging innovative development and driving sophisticated adoption of enterprise AR technologies and solutions amongst various businesses, enterprises and government agencies.

AREA: What can you tell us about the level of interest and activity in Enterprise AR in the APAC region?

MUN YEW: It’s certainly a nascent industry, especially in Southeast Asian markets. In Singapore, there have been some AR projects launched for air-cargo management in the transportation sector. There are also some large organizations with enterprise mobility entrenched in their business processes that are also thinking about leveraging that infrastructure to trial some enterprise AR projects. We’re also excited that HoloLens finally launched in Singapore last month. In addition, Air France Industries KLM Engineering and Maintenance has also been leveraging AR technology for training. The company’s MRO Lab in Singapore has paired the HoloLens with a training application prototype that allows mechanics to interact with expensive and complex parts—such as aircraft engines—in a virtual classroom environment. So I hope this will bring more awareness and interests to the industry as a whole.

AREA: How can interested companies and organizations get in touch with you?

MUN YEW: Sure, they can email me at [email protected] . I look forward to hearing from members and building our network in the Asia Pacific region.

AREA: What can AREA members do to help support your work?

MUN YEW: AREA members in various industrial verticals can help by sharing their success stories with our local/regional IT industry. This will not only help to educate the industry on factors to consider for successful implementation, but also encourage them to join the AREA as members to drive enterprise AR further!

AREA: Thank you – and welcome to the AREA!

Deep in the snow of a wintery Chicago, the annual AREA/DMDII workshop was a hotbed of activity!

The sessions attracted around 120 attendees comprising speakers, exhibitors, academics and those representing both commercial AR technology providers and companies using or looking to use AR within their business. Given the rarity of having such a collection of AR practitioners in one place, Glen Oliver (Lockheed Martin) and I wanted to harness this collective brainpower! Together, we represented the AREA Requirements Committee whose remit is to develop a set of industry requirements and use cases to help promote the adoption of AR.

The AREA Requirements Committee strongly believes that in order to benefit the entire ecosystem we need to effectively and impactfully articulate how AR technology can be applied to business problems, what capabilities are needed within AR solutions and, perhaps more importantly, what is the business value of these tools? This will help both vendors and users of AR.

So, with three hours allotted from a precious agenda, how to best use this time? The approach taken was to introduce the importance of developing a linked and connected schema of needs followed by group activities. Here’s what followed:

Backdrop

We began with a summary of the requirements capture, already started at the previous AREA/DMDII workshop. At that session, we captured 96 requirements, split roughly equally between hardware and software. Whilst this was a great start, the outcome resulted in a list of requirements with little context, structure, priority and limited ability to leverage the community to contribute towards them. At the same time, the AREA has collected a number of great use cases which have value to companies wishing to investigate where AR may be applied but the current use cases need more detail to be actionable and linked to derived requirements. More needed to be done!

So, we presented a proposed ‘AREA Schema of Needs, as shown below.

The idea is quite simple. We need to build a hierarchically linked set of needs, in various technology areas, that have bi-directional linkages to the use cases which incorporate the requirements. In turn, the use cases are linked to scenarios which define an end-to-end business process.

These scenarios occur in various settings (including engineering, manufacturing, field service, user operation, etc.) and, ultimately, are relevant in one or more industries (automotive, health care, industrial equipment and other industry verticals).

In order to set the scene, the presenters walked through examples of each of the taxonomy fields. For example, a sample field service scenario was provided as follows:

A field service technician arrives at the site of an industrial generator. They use their portable device to connect to a live data stream of IoT data from the generator to view a set of diagnostics and service history of the generator.

Using the AR device and app they are able to pinpoint the spatial location of the reported error code on the generator. The AR service app suggests a number of procedures to perform. One of the procedures requires a minor disassembly.

The technician is presented with set of step by step instructions, each of which provides an in-context 3D display of the step.

With a subsequent procedure, there is an anomaly which neither the technician nor the app is able to diagnose. The technician makes an interactive call to a remote  subject matter expert who connects into the live session. Following a discussion, the SME annotates visual locations over the shared display, resulting in a successful repair.

The job requires approximately one hour to perform. The device should allow for uninterrupted working during the task.

With the job finished, the technician completes the digital paperwork and marks the job complete (which is duly stored in the on-line service record of the generator).

In this example, the items in blue are links to underlying use cases which need to be supported in order to enable this scenario. Similarly, examples were presented for use cases and requirements needs.

We also introduced the notion of “Levels of Maturity.” This is a useful concept as it enables both users and suppliers of technology solutions to identify roadmap progression, with an eye on future, richer adoption or delivery. Alternatively, not all users of the technology need the most advanced solution now, but they can identify what might make business sense to them in the shorter term.

Group Exercise

With the backdrop complete, we moved into the interactive portion of the session. The audience was split into 17 table groups, each with a mix of people from industrial users, commercial suppliers and academics. The idea was to get a blend of perspectives for the group activity.

Delegates hard at work!

Armed with a set of templates furnished by Glen, the 17 teams were set the following exercise:Delegates hard at work!

1. Choose your industry and setting
2. Provide a written definition of the scenario
3. Highlight the “use case” chunks that form the scenario
4. Describe at least three of the supporting use cases
5. Capture some of the derived requirements/needs
6. Construct a maturity model
7. BONUS: Describe the value proposition of using AR in this scenario

Whilst each team was given a high-level scenario (e.g. “manufacturing operation” or “design review”), they were free to choose their own, if they wished.

It was great to see the level of discussion taking place across all of the tables! One of our objectives for the exercise was to use the outputs from the team as further content for helping populate a future database. However, the primary point of the exercise was to mix the attendees and have them focused on articulating scenarios, use cases and requirements in a structured way that can also be tied back to business value.

At the end of the session, a spokesperson for each team stood up and summarised the results of their work.

Outcome

Each team duly handed in their handwritten efforts, which were transcribed into a more usable digital form and are now available to AREA members by following this link below and opening up the transcription of the group’s outputs:

Augmented Reality Functional Requirements

So, what did we learn?

The teams have supplied an impressive amount of ideas which are summarised in the PDF. One unfortunate aspect of this is that we were unable to capture what were clearly detailed and illuminating discussions that were taking place across all of the tables. In some ways, perhaps, the ability to openly discuss these topics was possibly more valuable to the teams than what was written down.

The scenarios discussed included (but were not limited to) the following:

Additionally, these scenarios were described within a number of industries and settings.

Furthermore, we received some very positive anecdotal feedback from the delegates. One person stated, “This exercise was worth the trip in itself!”

One of the aims of the AREA Requirements Committee is to develop an online database to enable community participation in defining these needs and use cases. This exercise was a great incremental step in that journey. We look forward to building out this model for the benefit of the AR ecosystem and encouraging all to participate.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the DMDII team for onsite support and to all of the workshop delegates for making this a highly productive exercise.

Since its founding 31 years ago, Huawei has grown to become the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world and the world’s second largest smartphone manufacturer. With $75 billion in revenue, the global giant supports R&D operations in 21 countries around the world. After Huawei recently rejoined the AREA, we had a chance to talk with Farhad Patel, Technical Communication Manager based in Plano, Texas.

AREA: What has driven Huawei’s interest in augmented reality to date?

FARHAD PATEL: I work in the Innovation and Best Practices group in Huawei’s technical communication department. We’re responsible for developing and delivering the technical information and communication that goes out to our customers in the form of user guides, technical manuals, and instructional guides. A couple of years ago, as part of our innovation objectives, Rhonda Truitt, Director of Huawei’s Innovation and Best practices in Technical Communication group decided to research and pilot AR because she thought it could be very useful for information delivery. During our research we discovered that quite a few AR experiences involved showing someone how to perform a task and that’s what technical communicators do. We knew that technical communicators were the best people to deliver AR content and saw this as hugely beneficial to our audience. The thing that really appealed to us was that equipment could be automatically identified and content could be automatically displayed without searching. Contextually, this is what a person is looking at, and this is what he or she probably needs. So, it would save our customer’s time not to have to search and locate information.

AREA: Are your customers consumers or businesses?

FARHAD PATEL: Both. Huawei develops a full range of telecommunications equipment: switches, routers, servers, software, and the cell phone itself. We sell to telecommunications providers as well as consumers.

AREA: How would you describe the state of Huawei’s internal adoption of AR today?

FARHAD PATEL: I can’t speak for the rest of Huawei but in the documentation area we have done several very small, very targeted AR projects both in the US and in China. It’s not something that we’re doing corporate-wide for documentation, and it’s not something that we’re even doing product line-wide. So, if there is a certain product, like a power converter or a server, that we want to publicize to our customers, we may turn to AR or use AR as one of the channels to show its features and what it can do. We’ve also used AR at tradeshows but only in terms of certain products. So, we have done multiple small projects, but we haven’t scaled up to include a full product line since not all content is suitable for AR delivery.

AREA: Do you have a timetable in place for more widespread deployment?

FARHAD PATEL: It’s probably not on the near horizon because AR still has significant challenges that need to be addressed. And one of them is not even related to AR but more the content itself: how do we minimize the content to fit onto the smaller screen of a tablet or smartphone? And we have long procedures, filled with images and tables. That is a challenge. Another challenge is that the tracking and recognition technology is still not where it could be. And ideally, with AR, you could work hands-free. Just put on your glasses and you’d be able to see work instructions superimposed right next to the equipment. We’re still waiting for smart glasses technology to improve before large-scale adoption. So, those are the challenges that we’re struggling with as we try to ramp up the adoption of AR.

AREA: Among those eight pilots was a field technician installation instruction application with HyperIndustry, correct?

FARHAD PATEL: Yes, we’ve done three or four pilots with Inglobe Technologies. The other company that we’ve used is 3D Studio Blomberg, an AREA member. And we have developed AR experiences internally in China. We have also used another AR company, EasyAR.

AREA: What have you learned from the AR pilots that you’ve conducted so far?

FARHAD PATEL: We’ve improved our knowledge about AR technology – what it can do, what it can’t do, its limitations, its challenges. We’ve come a long way from where we started out. We have also increased the awareness of AR technology and expertise within the company itself. Now, we have many more product lines aware of AR technology and how powerful and successful it can be, because we’ve had a few customer pilots and we’ve demonstrated AR in these pilots, and the user groups and customers have been very appreciative of this new delivery channel for information. But at the same time, we’ve also identified what we cannot do with AR. So, we’re in a wait-and-see mode to see how best to proceed to take AR enabled information corporate-wide or even product line-wide for appropriate content.

AREA: How are you hoping to benefit from your membership in the AREA?

FARHAD PATEL: The main thing we want to get from the AREA is knowledge. We’re hoping to be able to share what we have learned. And I hope that other AREA members will reciprocate and tell us what they have learned. I would hope to learn more about their best practices, their challenges, what works for them, what doesn’t work for them. For example, if an AREA member has figured out how to minimize the content so that it can be visible on smaller screens, I’m hoping that they share that information.

Networking is another benefit. You know, we learned about 3D Studio Blomberg from the AREA, so getting in touch with other like-minded people to work with their technology. And of course, the best practices, white papers, and webinars that the AREA puts out. For example, recently the AREA developed an ROI calculator. Useful information like that will go a long way in validating our membership fees to the AREA.

AREA: What AREA activities do you expect to participate in?

FARHAD PATEL: The Research Committee is of great value and we try to participate in AREA programs and activities as much as possible.

April onward sees a real upward spike in the number of conferences and events around the world as exhibitors and attendees alike don their conference gear and get ready to join others doing the same. This is a great way to connect with others from the same industry, keep abreast of the latest developments in AR and explore new and exciting opportunities.

Here at The AREA we’ve got a full house of upcoming events which we’re promoting over the next few months and something to suit everyone’s tastes. We’re busier than ever before with events focused on AR, VR, IoT and Mixed Reality. And, there’s a destination to suit everyone’s budget and busy travel schedules from Europe-focused events in London, Amsterdam, Geneva and Spain, as well as events across the US, India and Japan.

In the latter part of April we have the AR/VR/MR Investment Summit in London which has invited investors and AR/VR/MR start-ups from all over the world followed by the Augmented Reality for Leading-Edge Utilities (ARLU) event in California. Then we’re into May, which begins with the 5^th AR/VR Innovate conference in Dublin, at which The AREA will have a presence on the showroom floor.

The 9^th AWE in Santa Clara from 30 May – 1 June, is one of the biggest AR and VR focused events with an enormous network of first-class speakers and 300+ exhibitors from across the globe spread over a vast expo floor. The AREA has planned a strong presence at this event chairing the work / enterprise speaker tracks . Our Executive Director, Mark Sage, will be one of the presenters of the Auggie Awards this year, a prestigious award recognising excellence in AR and VR.  More information to follow about AREA member meet up opportunities and events. To find out more about this event take a look here.

Moving into June we have AR & VR World at the London Excel from 12-14 June. This year The AREA has arranged a large Pavilion area where a few of our members will showcase their products and services together. This is a great way to bring down the cost for individual companies, create a rich sense of community and really enhance a strong brand presence for all. The AREA also has involvement in various speaking and panel sessions. Don’t miss out! Get registered here today.

In addition, there are a number of events where we’ve negotiated special member-only discounts such as the first ever IATA Aviation Virtual & Augmented Reality Summit, the IoT Tech Expo in Amsterdam, the Future Tech Expo over in Dallas, EWTS in Austin and the International Conference on Mechatronics and Robotics in Helsinki. As you can see, there’s a lot happening with something for everyone.

If you think we’ve missed something, do get in touch and we’ll work to get the event up on our website. Or, if you have any comments, queries or suggestions please reach out.

Last week, AREA member Atheer announced a new partnership with Toshiba -pairing Atheer’s AiR Enterprise solution with Toshiba’s new dynaEdge smart glasses. We checked in with Atheer’s Director of Marketing Communications, Geof Wheelwright, to get the story behind the story.

AREA: What was it about the Toshiba dynaEdge smart glasses that made Atheer want to pursue this partnership?

Wheelwright: We know from talking with customers that no one type of smart glasses will meet all the diverse needs of a given enterprise. It is inevitable that the average organization’s AR ecosystem will consist of a variety of smart glasses, devices and OS platforms. Atheer’s strategy is to be ubiquitous across this diversity of customer needs. So when Toshiba approached us last summer about being their software partner for a new range of smart glasses, we jumped at the opportunity to partner with them.  Toshiba is, of course, one of the world’s mobile computing leaders and its entry into the Enterprise Augmented Reality market is a pivotal moment in validating the potential and promise of the technology. Toshiba’s vast experience in working with enterprise customers on mobile solutions – and its keen understanding of their needs – makes it a great partner in delivering our flagship AiR™ Enterprise solution to Windows 10 users on new Toshiba’s dynaEdge™ AR Smart Glasses. Together, we believe that we can bring a much stronger awareness of what AR solutions can achieve in industrial enterprise roles such as field service, dealer service, manufacturing and repair operations, assembly line management, technician and expert training, warehouse picking, asset inspection and repair as well as remote visualization and support.

AREA: What does the pairing of AiR Enterprise and DynaEdge smart glasses bring to the enterprise AR market that it didn’t have before?

Wheelwright: There’s a new set of capabilities represented in both the Toshiba dynaEdge AR Smart Glasses – and Atheer’s implementation of AiR Enterprise on them. To begin with, these are the first AR smart glasses designed for Windows 10. Then you have the fact that Toshiba’s innovative dynaEdge Mobile Mini PC – a fully functioning Windows 10 PC in a tiny form factor – is part of the solution and ensures that users have access to all their standard Windows enterprise applications while using the dynaEdge AR Smart Glasses. When you add AiR Enterprise to the mix, you get a fully-featured, Windows-based enterprise-grade AR solution that provides touchless, gesture-based interaction, remote subject matter calling, contextual documentation, barcode scanning and step-by-step task flows.

AREA: What are the plans for this partnership beyond this announcement?

Wheelwright: This announcement is just the first step of our partnership. The next step is that Toshiba and Atheer are taking this combined solution to a number of Early Access Partners (EAPs) that represent some of Toshiba’s most strategic industrial customers.  These and other customer engagements will guide how we continue to work closely together to drive even greater integration with relevant, Windows-based infrastructure and key enterprise applications. As we see how customers use the solution, we will get – and be able to apply – essential insights into the specific needs of enterprise users who want a Windows 10-based AR solution to our development roadmap.