ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
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Citation
Articles | Volume V-4-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-V-4-2022-329-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-V-4-2022-329-2022
18 May 2022
 | 18 May 2022

VISUALLY ANNOTATED RESPONSIVE DIGITAL TWINS FOR REMOTE COLLABORATION IN MIXED REALITY ENVIRONMENTS

L. Baumgartner, L. Brägger, K. Koebel, J. Scheidegger, and A. Çöltekin

Keywords: Digital twins, mixed reality, remote collaboration, visual annotations

Abstract. Various forms of extended reality might empower remote collaboration in ways that the current de facto standards cannot facilitate. Especially when combined by a digital twin of the remote physical object, mixed reality (MR) opens up interesting new ways to support spatial communication. In this study, we explore the use of a digital twin to facilitate visuospatial communication in an expert-guided repair and maintenance operation scenario, supported by visual annotations. We developed two MR prototypes, one with a digital twin of the object of interest, and another where a first-person camera view was shown additionally. We tested these prototypes in a study with 19 participants (9 pairs) against a state-of-the art solution as a baseline and measured their usability, and obtained qualitative user feedback. Our findings suggest that digital twin supported mixed reality enriched with real time visual annotations can potentially improve remote collaboration tasks.