Stereoscopic desktop VR system for telemaintenance

Tele-cooperation for maintenance is usually supported by synchronous audio but only asynchronous video exchange when only limited bandwidth is available. We present an alternative approach for such a collaborative maintenance task. By utilizing techniques and technologies from Augmented Reality (AR) applications our approach can provide a synchronous shared visual context for the collaborators without a direct video link but through a Desktop VR system. To increase the spatial presence of the remote expert we employ stereoscopic displays. The effectiveness of a stereoscopic 3D system for orientation and localization was evaluated in an abstract experiment. In a more practical experiment the stereoscopic VR system was also evaluated by automobile mechanics. The benefits of stereoscopic Desktop VR systems were shown in both experiments.