Abstract
The term extended reality (XR) refers to a family of technologies that cover Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). The main benefit of XR is that it can offer a new viewpoint on the surrounding environment by augmenting it with digital data and visualizations. Recent developments of XR enable its deployment for rock engineering applications, including underground tunnels. In this paper, we demonstrate two cases of the use of XR in an underground tunnel to display spatial information on the tunnel surface. One of the tunnels in the Underground Research Laboratory of Aalto University (URLA) was digitized using Structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry. As a result, a high-resolution 3D point cloud and textured model of the tunnel were created. Next, the rock joint planes were obtained semi-automatically from the digitized rock surfaces. The results are then represented in their actual positions in the tunnel geometry. In the first case, we used VR to display the rock joint planes on the textured model of the tunnel. In the second case, the data was displayed in real-time in tunnel conditions through a mobile device. The results demonstrate that XR technology can be successfully used in underground construction to digitize the workplace and provide a new perspective on the work environment, which can potentially lead to an increase in safety and productivity.
Highlights
Extended reality (XR) refers to a group of immersive technologies that merge the virtual and physical world and include Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR)
The results demonstrate that XR technology can be successfully used in underground construction to digitize the workplace and provide a new perspective on the work environment, which can potentially lead to an increase in safety and productivity
This study demonstrates that XR technology in the form of Virtual and Augmented Reality can be applied in underground construction to overlay an additional dimension of spatial information on the tunnel surface
Summary
Extended reality (XR) refers to a group of immersive technologies that merge the virtual and physical world and include Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) (see Figure 1). With the recent developments of XR, the technology is ready to be deployed in rock engineering applications [1]-[2]. This, combined with the recent findings on the use of photogrammetry for digitization of underground tunnels [3]-[4], allows us to augment the underground environment of hard rock tunnels with rock mass spatial data collected from high-quality photogrammetric scans. We demonstrate two case applications of XR technology in an underground tunnel to display 3D spatial rock mass quality information on the tunnel surface.
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