Extended Reality Collaboration: Virtual and Mixed Reality System for Collaborative Design and Holographic-Assisted On-site Fabrication

Most augmented and virtual applications in architecture, engineering, and construction focus on structured and predictable manual activities and routine cases of information exchange such as quality assurance or design review systems. However, collaborative design activities such as negotiation, task specification, and interaction are not yet sufficiently explored. This paper presents a mixed-reality immersive collaboration system that enables bi-directional communication and data exchange between on-site and off-site users, mutually accessing a digital twin. Extended Reality Collaboration (ERC) allows building site information to inform design decisions and new design iterations to be momentarily visualized and evaluated on-site. Additionally, the system allows the developed design model to be fabricated with holographic instructions. In this paper, we present the concept and workflow of the developed system, as well as its deployment and evaluation through an experimental case study. The outlook questions how such systems could be transferred to current design and building tasks and how such a system could reduce delays, avoid misunderstandings and eventually increase building quality by closing the gap between the digital model and the built architecture.