KTM brings the service manual into the 21st century with aug

Hyundai's use of augmented reality to create a 21st century owner's manual remains one of our favorite—and most practical—implementations of AR tech to date. However, it's not the only cool use of AR in the automotive industry. Motorbike firm KTM is getting in on the action with an AR workshop manual that also demonstrates the utility of this burgeoning technology. KTM's app recognizes different serviceable elements on its bikes and then walks the technician through the necessary steps to fix them.

To find out a little bit more about how KTM went about creating the AR app, we spoke with Vuforia's Jay Wright (Vuforia is an AR firm that was bought from Qualcomm last year by PTC). Wright told us that there are now more than 25,000 Vuforia-built AR applications in Google Play and Apple's App Store, but most of them are consumer-facing—largely marketing-oriented—apps. (You can find a great automotive example at McLaren Cars.) This will soon change. "We're about to see serious traction in enterprise [applications]," Wright said.

Building an AR app requires several steps. The first—which is relatively simple, according to Wright—is telling the app what it's seeing. "You'll notice the content appears 'stuck' to something," Wright told us. "The application has to recognize the environment or the target." These targets can be images, objects, or surfaces. "It can be as simple as taking a picture or using a little scanning tool that we have that runs on your phone."

The next step—generating the 3D content—is a bit trickier. "A lot of what's available [to the developers] is still 2D diagrams," Wright told Ars. "Getting that into 3D and making it simple and compelling is somewhat of a chore." This usually starts with technical drawings or CAD files—although the latter can often be much higher-resolution than necessary. "To be frank, it probably depends on what format people have the line drawings and what format they have the CAD files in to determine the fastest path," he said.


Next that data is put together along with the instructions and wrapped into an application that can be installed on phones or tablets. Vuforia's Unity (a game engine for iOS and Android) is a popular tool, although PTC also has another product that fits within its existing Tools platform called ThingX. "A non-developer can start from existing CAD files and instructional content in Creo Illustrate and then be able to very simply author experiences like you saw from Hyundai quickly and without coding," Wright explained.

AR apps in this context will do more than just recognize objects with their cameras. With Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, it should be possible to query information directly from the car (or bike)—think engine oil level, coolant temperature, and so on—and present it to the user within their interface.

Hardware advances in camera technology and a maturation of AR headsets should take these kinds of tools to the next level, Wright told us. "The shift from conventional cameras to depth-sensing camera technology will have a dramatic impact on the robustness of the experience you see and the places we're able to have good AR experiences." Cameras able to use all three dimensions will make it much easier for the devices to recognize what they're seeing and to annotate them.

Additionally, AR will benefit as devices in your hand shift to devices on your head. "Ultimately we believe all these line of business applications are starting with a tablet because that's what's possible, but they will all at some point be in eyewear—they'll be on your head." Wright says we're in the early stages of that hardware being viable, but he believes it should get there quite quickly. An early example—albeit a consumer-focused one—was Mini's Hololens demonstrator that we checked out last year.

Vuforia and PTC aren't the only groups out there working on this problem. Bosch (a tier 1 supplier to the auto industry) has its own Common Augmented Reality platform, and of course the defense industry is spending cubic dollars on things like the F-35's augmented helmet.