Executive Summary
For the 2019 edition of the THERMPROCESS trade fair, SECO/WARWICK partnered with ValueLogic to create an Augmented Reality solution that would allow trade show visitors to see the furnace working in real-time without it even being in the booth. It provided a safe, ecological, and cost-effective solution for SECO/WARWICK and created an exciting and engaging experience for visitors to Thermoprocess 2019. In our partnership, we took on the challenge of presenting the company's equipment in Augmented Reality during the THERMPROCESS show.
About Seco/Warwick
SECO/WARWICK specializes in innovative heat treatment furnaces. Its solutions and technologies are used in the automotive, aviation, electronics and other demanding industries.
Intentions
- To find an innovative way of showing their large vast products anywhere in the world and premier them at fares
- The ready solution should work for as many attendees as possibles
When you produce big, heavy equipment like furnace, it is hard to demonstrate it during trade shows. Just getting to the venue is a project in itself. As a company that as a first deployed holographic technology ( SECO/LENS) and as being recognized as an innovation leader, we were looking for an innovative way of showing product premiere. ValueLogic helped us with creating an inspiring experience for our clients that made them remember our brand and technology..
Katarzyna Sawka, Global Marketing Director, SECO/WARWICK
Outcome
- Trade fair visitors could see SUPER IQ – a universal chamber furnace for carburizing and quenching steel - in AR technology
- AR markers that would allow the image to be viewed at a height of 3.5m, from as far as 20m away
- The company has gained to promote and display the features of large products in a modern way without incurring transport and logistics costs
- The solution is without asking attendees to download anything to their own devices
When we thought about reimagining our presence at the show, we knew that it might be difficult and risky to use new technologies. ValueLogic’s commitment to the project and its focus on delivering outstanding technology made us feel more secure. We were able to give visitors a glimpse into the future of our industry.
Katarzyna Sawka, Global Marketing Director, SECO/WARWICK
Challenges
- The main technology challenges were in designing and building an interactive application that would show the product and display almost real-time operational data in an inspection tool
- The proposed AR solution had to work flawlessly, in real-time, and show all the small working of a complex piece of machinery
- It was crucial to deliver a solution in a short time and with high quality
- Not all mobile devices are currently capable of displaying AR applications. We needed a universal app easily available to all visitors eager to view the product
- We needed a universal app easily available to all visitors eager to view the product
Approach
We decided that the fundamental element of bringing the virtual furnace to the show would be an accurate 3D AR model that could rotate and be inspected from a distance or close-up. Then we had to design the hardware to support that goal. We created AR markers that would allow the image to be viewed at a height of 3.5m, from as far as 20m away.
Solution
We chose AR.js to deliver a web-based solution instead of a native application. We also created a static page as a fallback scenario, to make sure that nobody at Thermoprocess 2019 missed out on the experience.
Result
We were able to deliver an innovative solution for presenting the innovative thermal treatment technology of SECO/WARWICK, without asking attendees to download anything to their own devices. We believe that extending the functionality of monitoring and maintenance applications with instant access to data presented in AR mode in place of inspection, is the future of the industry.