Structural Steel Fabrication with Mixed Reality

A new method to augment the quality control process of structural steel fabrication is proposed. Structural engineers and software engineers collaborate to produce a custom software to assist with quality control of fabricated steel before shipping the parts to the construction site. The process involves overlaying holograms onto the physical steel to display relevant information related to fit‐up work, which can include display of dimensions, streamlined information recording, and a guide to fabrication operations. The custom MR program can achieve a 1/16th inch (1.6 mm) accuracy between the holograms and the physical steel parts. The developed program is validated on two fabricated steel connections to demonstrate the features and the potential for implementing mixed reality into structural steel fabrication. Future planned developments are discussed.