Augmented reality inspection for fabrication

Your design, on the steel.

Catch mistakes before they ship, not on site. DatumAR puts your CAD model over the steel at full size and highlights issues in real time - less rework, fewer site fixes and a record of every check.

Book a shop demo How it works
Overlay
Placing the model

Why it matters

Find it in the bay, not on site.

A part that leaves the shop out of place comes back as rework on site, where every fix is slower and costs more. A national survey of Australian construction put the direct cost of rework at 6.4% of contract value, and the indirect cost at a further 5.9%.

Source: Love and Edwards, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 2005

Shop floor

Less rework

A cleat in the wrong place is a quick fix in the bay and a field fix on site. Check each weldment against the model before it ships.

QA and inspection

Faster checks

No working through the drawing one dimension at a time. The whole model sits over the steel, so you check every part in one walk round.

Design office

Answers on the steel

See your model on the real part and answer the shop's questions there, not over a marked-up drawing.

Production

A record of every unit

Every part checked and every issue logged with a photo, kept with its unit. Know what was checked, what was flagged and what is still open.

What you see

Walk round the part. The model stays on the steel.

01

The whole assembly, full sizeEvery part of the model sits over the steel you built.

The CAD model drawn in light outlines, placed and aligned over a small welded steel skid on a fixture table.
02

Placed in one lookOpen the job and the whole model is overlaid and ready to check.

Close-up of a steel skid with the CAD model drawn in light outlines: a bracket's outline faces out where the welded bracket faces in, four holes are outlined beside where they were drilled, and a cross member's outline sits beside the real one.
03

Off-design parts stand outDefects or missing items are immediately visible.

How it works

From a CAD file to the shop floor in four steps.

  1. The assembly's CAD model alone, drawn in light outlines on a dark ground.

    Upload the model

    Add the CAD file you already have to a job. DatumAR gets it ready for the device.

  2. The marker plate seated in the front-left corner of a steel base plate.

    Set the marker

    Set the small magnetic marker in a corner of the steel.

  3. The CAD model drawn in light outlines over the welded frame, seen from the marker corner.

    Open the job

    Open it on HoloLens 2 or iPad Pro and look at the marker. The model lands on the part, ready to nudge, pin and lock.

  4. Close-up of a column top where two bolts are outlined in orange as missing.

    Check and record

    Inspect each part, raise issues with photos, and share a numbered visual inspection report.

Bring the files you already make.

STEP, IGES, IFC and DSTV go straight in, as they come out of your CAD, and your original file stays with the job.

Jobs keep each fabricated unit separate, so ten builds of one design get ten sets of checks and issues.

STEP.step .stp
Assemblies with their part names and structure.
IGES.iges .igs
Surface and solid models from older CAD.
IFC.ifc .ifczip
Building models, keeping piece marks and GlobalIds.
DSTV NC1.nc1 .nc
One steel part per file, read straight from the standard.
Meshes.fbx .obj .gltf .glb .ply .stl
Shown as a preview.

Devices

A HoloLens 2 headset, with its tinted visor, brow enclosure and headband.Headset

HoloLens 2

Hands free on the shop floor, with your phone as the remote.

The back of an 11-inch iPad Pro in silver, with its camera module.Tablet

iPad Pro

The same jobs, setups and issues on a screen you can hand to anyone in the bay.

See it on your own steel.

We're based in Perth, Western Australia, and we come to your shop for the demo. Send us one of your models and we'll put it on a real part with you.

Prefer email? Write to hello@datumar.com.au

Book a shop demo

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