Touch-based Augmented Reality Marking Techniques on Production Parts

In the machining of production parts, the quality of the surface is subject to a variety of influences. Tool wear, thermal effects and vibrations can affect the surface quality of the machined object drastically. Some of those effects on the surface, like marks from vibrations, can be seen by machining experts directly on the object without measurement hardware or metrology systems. Those pieces of information held by the experts are valuable to the surface finishing staff, the metrology staff and data scientists, who could use them to improve both the product and the process. However, to enable this exchange of information, the relevant data needs to be indicated in a spatially resolved and machine-readable format. Additionally, the experts need to be able to mark the areas for all kinds of different requirements in a fast and suitable manner without possibly damaging the part itself. Our approach for this task is using a touch-based Augmented Reality system that allows the users to mark these areas of interest on the production part digitally without touching the production part itself. Therefore, we propose two different marking techniques - Shift&Freeze Marking and Relative Marking - based on literature from pointing tasks. We performed user trials to evaluate the usability, task load and overall performance of those techniques showing a general suitability for touch-based AR marking of relevant regions on productions parts.