Iribe AR Maintenance
University of Maryland’s Iribe is a new, state-of-the-art building for the Computer Science department. As such, the building has been imbued with countless sensors and systems that are accessible to its maintenance workers. While workers can access information about the status of these sensors and system, quick mobile access on-the-go is not currently achievable except through standard interfaces. However, mapping from a 2D surface, such as a desktop, to a classroom’s environment can be difficult to visualize. As such, we propose an augmented reality application which provides a maintenance overlay of the building. This allows workers to simply look at building systems in person and discover their statuses that overlay their physical counterparts.
Project Information
Challenges
- Mapping a preexisting 3D, CAD-like model of the building into a game engine
- Tracking of a user’s physical location within a multi-storied building
- Tying game engine user interface into a preexisting database and API
- Displaying meaningful, interactive graphs and inputs to building systems through a game engine
- Keeping the interface clean and organized when dealing with countless systems
Alternative Ideas
- Link up with the Iribe room schedule AR team to better inform maintenance workers about classes
- While we plan on using Unity game engine, we may evaluate Unreal game engine since only dynamic data is that of sensor readings
- We plan on working with iPhone and iPad devices, but a Microsoft Hololens or other AR glasses device would be interesting to evaluate
PROJECT GOALS
The main goal of this project is to determine the feasibility of an augmented reality application for building maintenance.
See progress update slides here
Short Term
- Be able to represent a room and its components in AR
- Fetch real-time information from Iribe database
- Display maintenance information in a user-sensitive way in AR
- Implement entire solution on an iOS device
Long Term
- Extend implementation for all of Iribe
- Create solution for other AR-capable devices (like glasses)
- Bug fixes and performance optimizations if need be
- User studies with maintenance workers for interface designs
Minimum Expected Contribution
By April 25th
- Create a mock room to mimic an actual Iribe room
- Recognize user’s position in room
- Have sensors/systems for the user to interact with
- Link database data to corresponding object
By Mid-May
- Overlaying preexisting model with game engine
- Pulling live data from an object
- Early implementation of location in Iribe (e.g. floor, room, etc…)
IRIBE AR MAINTENANCE 