XYZ Reality’s Holosite - an AR hardhat solution that lets construction teams view and position holograms of design models ‘to millimetre accuracy’ – has spent the past two years being deployed on projects valued at over £1.5bn, which has helped to refine the technology and position XYZ as a leading construction technology provider.
The Atom is XYZ’s next-generation AR headset, which combines a safety-certified hardhat, augmented reality displays and in-built computing capabilities of HoloSite.
In use, the AR tool allows the wearer to see full holographic BIM (Building Information Modelling) models of structures that are superimposed on work already underway to identify errors before they become too costly to rectify.
David Mitchell, founder and CEO, XYZ Reality explained that the building/project data is uploaded into the HoloSite platform which the Atom headset plugs into.
Atom positions 3D design models to construction tolerances with its laser-based tracking technology. The models are positioned by tapping into the site coordinate system, Mitchell said.
“The Atom has 1TB storage and 16GB of RAM allowing users to visualise hyper-complex geometry out on site to millimetre accuracy,” he added. “We are currently working on displaying associated metadata for users onsite.”
For collaborative work, the Atom allows teams to live stream into the headset and see what the user is viewing onsite.
“This real-time collaboration along with our HoloSite cloud platform brings site teams and office teams together,” Mitchell said.
The move from access phase to commercial availability follows a £20m Series A funding round in June 2021 and the company said it is ‘on track for 300 per cent growth in 2022’. XYZ added that it will open a US headquarters to facilitate growth.
“The Atom is the world's most accurate AR device for construction,” said Mitchell. “Our headset has been developed in-house from the ground up with construction in mind. What makes AR useful in construction is being able to position and visualise holograms of 3D models onsite to within construction tolerances, it is this accuracy and construction mindset that sets us apart.”
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