Continuing from part one, see how an innovative acquisition is helping to drive the autonomous future laid out in CEO Ola Rollén’s letter to shareholders.
Welcome back for part two of our series on how Hexagon is pursuing and achieving the ideals laid out by our CEO Ola Rollén in his March 2022 letter to Hexagon shareholders. Last time, we learned about one application of autonomous data utilisation through HxGN Connect, a solution that puts data to work by connecting infrastructure and monitoring for more efficient and timely responses by city agencies. But that’s not all we’re doing to bridge the gap between data generation and utilisation – in this edition, we’re going to look into a fun and functional way that data and the real world come together to form a more complete picture of our everyday lives.
“The ability to fully leverage data changes our thought processes and approach to innovation. It becomes an indispensable resource for fostering new value creation and knowledge.”- Ola Rollén, Hexagon CEO
Hexagon spent 2021 launching hundreds of new innovations, solutions and technologies that focused on this commitment to leveraging data. As we mentioned last time, the SaaS collaboration workspace HxGN Connect allows government agencies and other organisations to coordinate in their responses to ad-hoc, routine and emergency situations to foster more effective services and happier residents. But that’s far from the end of the list when it comes to how our autonomous solutions are helping industry thrive. The award-winning BLK sensor series from Leica Geosystems was expanded with fully autonomous mobile reality capture with the Leica BLK ARC and the Leica BLK2FLY, giving new speed and agility to reality capture workflow for a wide range of business applications. We also introduced our new blast capture software, HxGN MineMeasure, which combines design, precision, monitoring, analysis and analytics to increase profitability of mines while still reducing waste. These solutions (plus many others) were a part of a year that saw Hexagon making great strides to deliver on our mission to empower an autonomous future. But we’d like to skip ahead to one product that brings our autonomous philosophy out of the industrial space and into the hands of the public: Immersal, part of Hexagon.
Immersal is an innovator of spatial mapping and visual positioning solutions for producing augmented reality (AR) applications. Its AR technology enhances real-world experiences by augmenting a user’s visual perception of the physical world with relevant digital content. The breadth of possible use cases for AR is incredible, extending from small event spaces and businesses to massive live event spaces, museums, stadiums and more, including public service locations such as hospitals and airports.
Perhaps you’re familiar with the sometimes-frustrating experience of catching an early morning flight. You’re tired, you’re in a hurry, and you may be arriving at an airport you’re not very familiar with. Ordinarily, your only lifeline in this situation would be a blocky overhead map of the terminal with vague markings and symbols – wasting precious time that you just don’t have. With a robust AR application in place you could hold up your phone and see directional and other information displayed in the context of your immediate surroundings, helping you find the right ticket counter, the security line with the shortest wait time or even find a place to grab the toothpaste you forgot to pack as you hurry through the terminal. The airport isn’t the only place that digital overlays and the real world complement each other, either. From marketers and ad agencies being able to display sale prices on store signs in shopping malls to museums providing in-depth supplementary information on exhibits through interactive games for curious kids, the possibilities are nearly endless.
Immersal provides easy-to-use backend tools that customers of any size can use to create their own rich AR experiences. Its technology allows for fast visual positioning both offline on-device and online in the cloud with low system overhead, and a pre-built app available for mapping real-world locations along with detailed documentation to help developers get started so anyone can get started on the road to realising their business in the digital realm.
The value of AR doesn’t stop at entertainment, either. Immersal has many uses that help in industrial spaces. Users can augment factory floors, warehouses, engine rooms, large industrial workspaces and more with any digital data they wish. This allows workers to accomplish tasks on site with the remote support of specialists, with both able to access and manipulate augmented content on top of real-world objects.
Putting data to work to improve industry and the world around us is an integral part of our vision here at Hexagon, and acquisitions like Immersal are key to making that vision a reality. Speaking of improving the world, in our third and final post in this series we’ll be looking at Hexagon’s commitment to sustainability and how we can bolster industry while protecting our planet. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week for part three!
