As a global leader in digital reality solutions, Hexagon is continuously expanding its capabilities through innovations and acquisitions that broaden the solution portfolio. Hexagon’s latest acquisition, Immersal Oy, offers a unique software development kit (SDK) that allows developers to merge the real world with augmented reality (AR) by anchoring digital content to real-world objects.
The technology uses a people’s mobile devices to determine their precise location and to orient to the surrounding physical world. Using machine-readable maps constructed from image data hosted in the Immersal Cloud Service, the technology offers users the ability to weave context-specific 3D information into physical spaces.
For example, Immersal solutions allowed Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Vissel Kobe to offer a new and immersive experience to football fans in Japan: By pointing their smartphones toward the pitch or using smart glasses, people in Kobe stadium could watch the game while also seeing player and match statistics as well as commercial content through an augmented reality (AR) overlay. Immersal’s technology compared the device’s camera view to the precaptured 3D visual map to identify the device’s orientation and precise location which meant that AR content was matched to the stadium no matter where the viewer was located.
This innovative solution works on different devices in the same position and orientation, both offline and online using the Cloud Service. Immersal SDK saves time, improves performance and reduces costs across a variety of business cases, mapping large areas indoors and outdoors, such as warehouses, engine rooms, large industrial workspaces, airports, transportation hubs, museums and much more.
“Hexagon has long been a leader in delivering smart digital realities that combine inputs from reality capture sensors with advanced visualisation software and tools to enable remote, location-based intelligence. This acquisition puts the power of these insights into the hands of those on site, enhancing their field of view with superimposed digital information, meaning they can literally do more with what they see,” says Hexagon President and CEO Ola Rollén. “For example, direct access to information about an asset – while working with that asset – including step-by-step instructions on how to repair it, can streamline maintenance tasks while reducing material waste and re-work.”
Click here to learn more about how Hexagon’s acquisition of Immersal Oy is changing the way developers use AR, boosting efficiency, improving safety protocols, optimising workflows, increasing collaboration and much more.
