Evaluation of Augmented Reality in steel column inspection

Examples of Augmented Reality (AR) applications in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry remain in the early research and development stage. The adoption of AR in AEC will be facilitated by quantifiably demonstrating the benefits of AR in tasks with AR prototypes. In this study, an experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the benefits of inspection with an AR system prototype over a conventional method. An AR prototype system for inspection, the ARCam, has been developed in the Advanced Construction Systems Laboratory at Purdue University. This paper explains the experimental methodology employed to evaluate the benefits of inspection with the ARCam versus a conventional method and discusses the experimental results. This study focuses on steel column inspection for the experimental evaluation. The results of the experiment indicate that although the AR approach is less precise, it can satisfy standard tolerances, and the simpler and faster setup may compensate for its shortcomings. Even though there are still technical and human factors issues regarding accuracy to be addressed and advanced, the ARCam is a promising inspection device for inspecting steel columns.