Situated Visualization of IIoT Data on the Hololens 2

Augmented Reality for the Industrial Internet of Things (AIIT) is a use case in the larger research project Immersive Media Lab [2], which is currently being conducted at the University of Applied Sciences St.Pölten. This use case deals with the challenges of AR data visualization on AR HMDs in smart factories using the example of an industrial furnace. The application is intended to support people in two ways: On the one hand, new personnel should be able to quickly and easily understand the processes happening in the plant, and on the other hand, conditions for maintenance work that are invisible from the outside should be displayed in an understandable and easily consumable way directly situated at the system using AR. In addition to conventional displays (dashboards) for the representation of abstract sensor values, we use the concept of Indexical Visualization, which can reduce the cognitive load for the viewer. The system itself is expanded in AR in such a way that the information to be displayed becomes a natural part of the scene. In this paper, we describe the steps necessary to create a mixed reality industrial application for the Microsoft Hololens 2 in terms of: optimizing a digital 3D model of the facility, establishing the data interface to the plant using an OPC-UA to MQTT bridge, correctly aligning the large 3D object in the real environment, and visual metaphors for making the machine data understandable for users.