Siemens & Keele AR Demonstrator

Complex External Data Made Accessible in a Custom AR Space

Siemens and Keele University commissioned a demonstrator to convey their work to date on their ongoing project of reaching a net zero emissions by 2030. That’s where we came in – we decided to augment the digital twin of the entire campus, starting initially with seven key buildings. We linked them into Siemens’ energy monitoring system to access real-time data with the augmented reality version of the buildings.

Using the latest in photogrammetry technology, each building was creating from hundreds of photographs through custom ground rigs and drone photography. The images were stitched together to give a true-to-life 3D representation of the buildings. Our 3D team re-toped each building and our 3D artists created over 100 texture assets including brick work, stone cobbles, roof slates and even foliage to ensure every asset was optimised for mobile AR.

Each virtual building was linked to the campus twin through Siemens Distributed Energy Optimisation Platform (DEOP) via an API, providing access to real-time and historical energy performance of its real-world counterpart. We developed an intelligent data display technique, which adapted based upon the users focus and proximity to the building, allowing us to display key and more in-depth information without the need for cumbersome panels or UX, which could break the immersion of the AR experience.

In future releases, Keele University could run energy simulations in AR, based on their actual data and use their findings to improve real-life campus energy efficiency.

“MAADIGITAL has created a uniquely easy-to-use digital twin that helps us show the positive effects of the Keele University SEND project in augmented reality to a wide range of people. Brilliant!”
Ian Lloyd, Head of Microgrid Solutions, Siemens plc.