HoloLens Work
Year of Work | 2020
Position | Virtual Design and Construction Engineer
Tools Used | Microsoft HoloLens 2, Trimble Connect, Autodesk Navisworks Manage
Features | 3D Models, Mixed Reality, Documentation Creation
Airport
Upon receiving a pre-order Microsoft HoloLens 2, I was tasked with figuring out how to get the 3D models for an airport's bag room that we used for MEP coordination (mechanical-electrical-plumbing) to be seen in the HoloLens. I never used any XR equipment before and my department wanted to see results within a few months. The documentation at the time was only for the HoloLens first generation and there was only one other person in our company that used this technology that I knew of. That person was able to give me some background on how he used it, but he was not using it the way I intended on using the HoloLens and used different software than what my team purchased so I embarked on a journey of trial and error, recording my failures, questions and triumphs as I explored the device.
After about a month and a half, I was able to import our 3D models into Trimble Connect (a software to display models) ,walk around the airports bag room with the 3D models accurately placed, create safety and usage documentation and present the product to the owner representatives of the airline. Within minutes of wearing the device, the representatives were able to identify potential areas of opportunity and understand concepts that we previously explained to them since they could see how the final product would look like.
Picture: Above you can see pictures I took while in the HoloLens in the airport's bag room. You can see the 3D model of the baggage handling system (the conveyor system for the bags to get to the airplanes after dropped off by passengers) being overlaid on the real world bag room.
The problems that I encountered while on this endeavor was the lack of Microsoft documentation on the HoloLens 2 (a few weeks after the presentation to representatives, I saw some documentation out) and lack of knowledge on my company's part. This was resolved mostly by trial and error of HoloLens 1st generation documentation and exploring the device. One of the biggest struggles was trying to import our models that were not in the right format for Trimble Connect and also not lose the amount of detail/information that the models had once they were in the HoloLens. There was a large amount of geometry to render and it would slow down the device, not render the objects in time, or not render the objects at all. This was important to have to allow for immersion, presence and fidelity while in the HoloLens. I was able to reduce the render distance from the user and simplify the 3D models to the necessary information to allow for easier processing while walking the bag room. Other problems I found were not having a constant internet connection, the chaos/safety in the bag room and transferring the information to my own documentation to allow others to understand what to do.
My team planned on having me lead the training to teach everyone on how to use the HoloLens but the week before the training, the coronavirus conflict happened. This project has been tabled since then and will most likely not continue due to the COVID-19 delay and project finishing up.
Year of Work | 2020-
Position | Virtual Design and Construction Engineer
Tools Used | Microsoft HoloLens 2, Autodesk Revit
Features | 3D Modeling, Mixed Reality, Safety, Training
HoloLens Safety Training
This is a work in progress.
After using the HoloLens 2 in the airport, my department and I came up with the idea to use my knowledge from the airport about the HoloLens and apply that to make a training program for our office on how to be safe on the jobsite. This is very important in the construction industry- in the private sector, one in five workers who die are in construction (OSHA). The idea was to use the training room in our office and have people be in the HoloLens identify hazards that are modeled in the simulation. We were also thinking of expanding this to our whole building and even using the HoloLens for renovation ideas.
The first phase was to model the building in Revit and model the floors in the building that my company occupies. I am in process of modeling one of the floors but due to COVID-19, I cannot be in the office to model it accurately so it is a very slow process to model the office from old plans that are not accurate. Until I can get into the office, I am working more on refining my current HoloLens 2 usage documentation that I created and modeling what is on the latest as built plans for the office.