Visual Computing combines established and scientific methods for position determination, tracking technologies and machine learning to drive the following innovations:

  • Systems with higher-value perception and assistance options
  • Smart devices and tools
  • Collaborating robots

Our current research focuses on spatial augmented reality for assembly assistance systems and a versatile perception system ‘AssemblyEye‘.

 

Our Competencies and Main Topics

We are a technology-enthusiastic team with competences in different fields (machine vision, parallel computing, deep neuronal networks, embedded systems, mechatronics, software engineering).

  • We offer solution competences with latest technologies and support our customers in the conception phase, in the proof-of-concept and in the product development of their innovations.
  • Our software extends existing (often imaging based) hardware components (e. g. 3D sensors, 2D sensors, inertial systems, tracking devices, wearables, …) and increases the potential and application possibilities of these basic technologies.
  • The resulting higher-value, partially disruptive technology is above the state of the art and lays the foundation for the innovations mentioned above.

It’s particularly important to us,

  • encapsulate the necessary complexity (such as the processing of sensor data, real-time capability through parallel data processing) in controllable modules and
  • to develop technology that is easy to use and integrate, and works in the real world so that new products can be created.

Visual computing developments are largely application independent. We are interested in applications arising from this. We are particularly pleased if our developments are not only used in a specific application context, but also in several application fields / domains to benefit our customers.

Projects

Automated visual quality inspection (AVQI) is essential for the production of high-quality goods. However, industrial companies often find that setting them up is time-consuming, error-prone and costly. They inevitably lead to unnecessary waste of resources and high energy consumption. The technical ...+
FlexSpect.AI
The international research project Teaming.ai with 15 partners, concerns the interaction of man and machine as a team. The goal is to achieve true teaming through a novel software framework. For example, AI systems can easily perform repetitive tasks with high accuracy, while humans find it easier t ...+
Teaming.Ai
The aim of this international research project with six partners, is to create a high universal applicable construction site robot. Although the planned robot can be assembled from individual modules, it should be able to carry the heaviest loads. In addition to transporting components, it is also i ...+
Concert
Brain surgeries are very challenging and difficult interventions. They are only possible with the help of high technology and exceptional cognitive and motor skills of neurosurgeons. The project "Medical EDUcation in Surgical Aneurysm clipping (MEDUSA)" creates an innovative training and planning pl ...+
Medusa

Finished Projects

The enormous increase in the number of variants and complexity in industrial products leads inevitably to a cost explosion at the industrial assembly process: Because of the high number of variants the assembly tasks have to be carried out manually. For example, for engine assembly it takes up to a ...+
ShowMe
The research project InstructMe deals with the issues of a highly raising variance and volatility in production and aims the reduction of planning and executing new production processes. Coincidentally also the operational knowledge of experienced workers and experts should be passed and conserved b ...+
InstructMe
An essential part of machine manufacturing is the interplay between construction and production. Often this connection leaks information in both ways: the construction team changes details in the last minute, while in production things are mounted in a different order or way as it was intended. With ...+
SIAM
IMP explores new methods and tools for improving maintenance planning and execution in highly demanding and complex production systems by intuitively guiding, supervising and optimised scheduling. This includes the following priorities: (1) detection and classification of maintenance tasks from the ...+
IMP
Technologielabor für die humanzentrierte, assistive Produktion der Zukunft Ziel des Projekts ist der Aufbau eines vernetzten Technologie-Laboratoriums zur Entwicklung und Erprobung neuartiger, assistiver Technologien, Methoden und Konzepte für eine künftige digitale humanzentrierte Produktion. Ha ...+
Smart Factory Lab
Which production step is the individual employee currently in? How does he/she act at assembly stations and workbenches and with what strategy does he/she solve a task? What work routes does he/she have, how quickly does he/she walk, what ergonomic strain does he/she have? The more flexible and unpr ...+
Assembly Eye
Industrial Use Case – Location aware tablet   &   Medical Use Case – Projection based assistance Visual Augmented Reality Assistant for Spatial Mapping VizARd bridges the gap between the output of a digital planning step and the mapping onto real world objects. Static and/or mobile AR de ...+
Vizard
Platform-based AI System for Human Motion Analysis to optimize Ergonomics of Hybrid Work Systems in Industry In the Hybrid Work Systems project, an extended, standardized and formal layer model of industrial processes is being developed, which can be used to describe joining processes, assistance st ...+
Hybrid Work Systems

Publications

Publications

Stübl, Gernot, Christoph Heindl, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Harald Bauer, and Andreas Pichler (2023). “Lessons Learned from Human Pose Interaction in an Industrial Spatial Augmented Reality Application”. In: Procedia Computer Science 217, pp. 912–917.

Fritzsche, L, K Bengler, M Spitzhirn, HJ Wirsching, M Fleischer, M Benter, C Heindl, N Scheder, G Reisinger, F Strohmeier, et al. (2022). “ARBEITSWISSENSCHAFT”. In: Zeitschrift für Arbeitswissenschaft 76.4.

Spitzhirn, Michael, Martin Benter, Christoph Heindl, Noël Scheder, Gerhard Reisinger, Felix Strohmeier, and Wernher Behrendt (2022). “Hybrid work systems—platform-based work planning—designing productive and human-centered work processes”. In: Zeitschrift für Arbeitswissenschaft 76.4, pp. 489–509.

Stübl, Gernot, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Harald Bauer, and Andreas Pichler (2022). “Lessons learned from industrial augmented reality applications”. In: Procedia Computer Science 200, pp. 1218–1226.

Heindl, Christoph, Lukas Brunner, Sebastian Zambal, and Josef Scharinger (2021). “Blendtorch: A real-time, adaptive domain randomization library”. In: Pattern Recognition. ICPR International Workshops and Challenges: Virtual Event, January 10–15, 2021, Proceedings, Part IV. Springer International Publishing, pp. 538–551.

Pönitz, Thomas, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Gernot Stübl, Christoph Heindl, and Josef Scharinger (2021). “On the potential of large-scale extended reality interaction for industrial environments”. In: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2021 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2021 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 61–63.

Schenkenfelder, Bernhard, Wolfgang Fenz, Stefan Thumfart, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Gernot Stübl, David B Lumenta, Gernot Reishofer, and Josef Scharinger (2021). “Elastic registration of abdominal mri scans and rgb-d images to improve surgical planning of breast reconstruction”. In: 2021 Annual Modeling and Simulation Conference (ANNSIM). IEEE, pp. 1–12.

Heindl, Christoph (2020a). “Graph Neural Networks for Node-Level Predictions”. In: arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.08649.

Heindl, Christoph, Markus Ikeda, Gernot Stübl, Andreas Pichler, and Josef Scharinger (2019a). “Enhanced Human-Machine Interaction by Combining Proximity Sensing with Global Perception”. In: arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.02445.

Heindl, Christoph, Markus Ikeda, Gernot Stübl, Andreas Pichler, and Josef Scharinger (2019b). “Metric pose estimation for human-machine interaction using monocular vision”. In: arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.03239.

Heindl, Christoph, Thomas Pönitz, Andreas Pichler, and Josef Scharinger (2019). “Large area 3D human pose detection via stereo reconstruction in panoramic cameras”. In: arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.00534.

Heindl, Christoph, Gernot Stübl, Thomas Pönitz, Andreas Pichler, and Josef Scharinger (2019). “Visual large-scale industrial interaction processing”. In: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 280–283.

Heindl, Christoph, Sebastian Zambal, Thomas Ponitz, Andreas Pichler, and Josef Scharinger (2019). “3d robot pose estimation from 2d images”. In: arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.04987.

Heindl, Christoph, Sebastian Zambal, and Josef Scharinger (2019). “Learning to predict robot keypoints using artificially generated images”. In: 2019 24th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA). IEEE, pp. 1536–1539.

Pönitz, Thomas, Christoph Heindl, H Bauer, and Martin Kampel (2019). “Automatic intrinsics and extrinsics projector calibration with embedded light sensors”. In: Proceedings of the OAGM ARW Joint Workshop.

Strasser, Thomas, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, and Alois Zoitl (2019). “Standardized dynamic reconfiguration of control applications in industrial systems”. In: Rapid Automation: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. IGI Global, pp. 776–793.

Zambal, Sebastian, Christoph Heindl, and Christian Eitzinger (2019). “Probabilistic Modelling combined with a CNN for boundary detection of carbon fiber fabrics”. In: 2019 IEEE 17th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN). Vol. 1. IEEE, pp. 1621–1626.

Zambal, Sebastian, Christoph Heindl, Christian Eitzinger, and Josef Scharinger (2019). “End-to-end defect detection in automated fiber placement based on artificially generated data”. In: Fourteenth international conference on quality control by artificial vision. Vol. 11172. SPIE, pp. 371–378.

Heindl, Christoph, Thomas Pönitz, Gernot Stübl, Andreas Pichler, and Josef Scharinger (2018). “Spatio-thermal depth correction of RGB-D sensors based on Gaussian processes in real-time”. In: Tenth International Conference on Machine Vision (ICMV 2017). Vol. 10696. SPIE, pp. 333–340.

Ikeda, M., G. Ebenhofer, J. Minichberger, G. Stübl, A. Pichler, A. Huber, and A. Weiss (2018). “User Experience in kollaborativen Roboteranwendungen”. In: Proceedings of „Assistenztechnologien in der Arbeitswelt – uDay XVI.

Stübl, G., G. Ebenhofer, Harald Bauer, and Pichler Andreas (2018). “Projector-based non-planar Augmented Reality for assistance in an assembly process”. In: Proceedings of „Assistenztechnologien in der Arbeitswelt – uDay XVI;.

Plasch, Matthias, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Michael Hofmann, Martijn Rooker, Sharath Chandra Akkaladevi, and Andreas Pichler (2017). “Workspace Sharing Assembly Robots: Applying IEC 61499 to System Integration and Application Development”. In: Distributed Control Applications. CRC Press, pp. 397–422.

Stübl, G, C Heindl, H Bauer, and A Pichler (2017). “Deep Learning based Aesthetic Evaluation of State-Of-The-Art 3D Reconstruction Techniques”. In: accepted for the 8th 3DBody.Tech Conference & Expo.

Stübl, G, C Heindl, H Bauer, and A Pichler (2017). “On Quality Assurance of 3D Bust Reconstructions”. In: Proceedings of the 2nd OAGM-ARW Joint Workshop Vision, Automation and Robotics. In M. Vincze, B. Blaschitz, R. Huber-Moerk, M. Roth (editors).

Stübl, G., T. Pönitz, H. Bauer, and A. Pichler (2017). “Novel Human Machine Interaction with Sticky Notes for Industrial Production”. In: Proceedings of the 2nd OAGM-ARW Joint Workshop Vision, Automation and Robotics. In M. Vincze, B. Blaschitz, R. Huber-Moerk, M. Roth (editors).

Akkaladevi, Sharath, Martin Ankerl, Christoph Heindl, and Andreas Pichler (2016). “Tracking multiple rigid symmetric and non-symmetric objects in real-time using depth data”. In: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE, pp. 5644–5649.

Heindl, Christoph, Sharath Chandra Akkaladevi, and Harald Bauer (2016a). “Capturing photorealistic and printable 3d models using low-cost hardware”. In: Advances in Visual Computing: 12th International Symposium, ISVC 2016, Las Vegas, NV, USA, December 12-14, 2016, Proceedings, Part I 12. Springer International Publishing, pp. 507–518.

Heindl, Christoph, Sharath Chandra Akkaladevi, and Harald Bauer (2016b). “Photorealistic texturing of human busts reconstruction”. In: Seventh International Conference on 3D Body Scanning Technologies, pp. 225–230.

Rooker, Martijn, Christian Wögerer, Alfred Angerer, Christoph Kopf, Jose Capco, Aitor Olarra, Elena Fuentes, Carola Zwicker, and Andreas Pichler (2016). “Flexible grasping of electronic consumer goods”. In: The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 85, pp. 71–84.

Akkaladevi, Sharath Chandra and Christoph Heindl (2015). “Action recognition for human robot interaction in industrial applications”. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Computer Graphics, Vision and Information Security (CGVIS). IEEE, pp. 94–99.

Heindl, Christoph, Harald Bauer, Martin Ankerl, and Andreas Pichler (2015). “ReconstructMe SDK: a C API for Real-time 3D Scanning”. In: 6th International Conference and Exhibition on 3D Body Scanning Technologies, pp. 185–193.

Huber, Gerold, Markus Ikeda, Michael Hofmann, Christoph Heindl, and Andreas Pichler (2014). “Full Autonomous Quadcopter for Indoor 3D Reconstruction”. In: Conference: Austrian Robotics Workshop.

Kopf, Christoph, Christoph Heindl, Martin Ankerl, Harald Bauer, and Andreas Pichler (2014). “ReconstructMe-Towards a Full Autonomous Bust Generator”. In: Proc. of 5th Int. Conf. on 3D Body Scanning Technologies, pp. 184–190.

Plasch, Matthias, Michael Hofmann, Gerhard Ebenhofer, and Martijn Rooker (2014). “Reduction of development time by using scriptable IEC 61499 function blocks in a dynamically loadable type library”. In: Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE Emerging Technology and Factory Automation (ETFA). IEEE, pp. 1–8.

Rooker, Martijn, Michael Hofmann, Juergen Minichberger, Markus Ikeda, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Gerald Fritz, and Andreas Pichler (2014). “Flexible and assistive quality checks with industrial robots”. In: ISR/Robotik 2014; 41st International Symposium on Robotics. VDE, pp. 1–6.

Rooker, Martijn, Michael Hofmann, Jürgen Minichberger, Markus Ikeda, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Gerald Fritz, and Andreas Pichler (2014). “Quality inspection performed by a flexible robot system”. In: Proceedings of the Austrian Robotics Workshop. Vol. 22. 23.

Strasser, Thomas, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, and Alois Zoitl (2014). “Standardized dynamic reconfiguration of control applications in industrial systems”. In: International Journal of Applied Industrial Engineering (IJAIE) 2.1, pp. 57–73.

Zhou, Kai, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Christian Eitzinger, Uwe Zimmermann, Christoph Walter, José Saenz, Luis Pérez Castaño, Manuel Alejandro Fernández Hernández, and José Navarro Oriol (2014). “Mobile manipulator is coming to aerospace manufacturing industry”. In: 2014 IEEE international symposium on robotic and sensors environments (ROSE) proceedings. IEEE, pp. 94–99.

Ebenhofer, G, H Bauer, M Plasch, S Zambal, SC Akkaladevi, A Pichler, O Givehchi, H Trsek, J Jasperneite, S Patil, et al. (2013). “IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND FACTORY AUTOMATION, ETFA”. In.

Ebenhofer, Gerhard, Harald Bauer, Matthias Plasch, Sebastian Zambal, Sharath Chandra Akkaladevi, and Andreas Pichler (2013). “A system integration approach for service-oriented robotics”. In: 2013 IEEE 18th Conference on Emerging Technologies & Factory Automation (ETFA). IEEE, pp. 1–8.

Kopf, Christoph, Christoph Heindl, Martijn Rooker, Harald Bauer, and Andreas Pichler (2013). “A portable, low-cost 3D body scanning system”. In: 3D Body Scanning Technologies, pp. 417–25.

Zoitl, Alois, Thomas Strasser, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2013). “Developing modular reusable IEC 61499 control applications with 4DIAC”. In: 2013 11th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN). IEEE, pp. 358–363.

Heindl, C and C Kopf (2012). “ReconstructMe”. In: reconstructme. net.

Plasch, Matthias, Andreas Pichler, Harald Bauer, Martijn Rooker, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2012). “A plug & produce approach to design robot assistants in a sustainable manufacturing environment”. In: 22nd International Conference on Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing (FAIM 2012), Helsinki, Finland.

Wögerer, Christian, Harald Bauer, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Alberto Rovetta, Neil Robertson, and Andreas Pichler (2012). “LOCOBOT-low cost toolkit for building robot co-workers in assembly lines”. In: Intelligent Robotics and Applications: 5th International Conference, ICIRA 2012, Montreal, Canada, October 3-5, 2012, Proceedings, Part II 5. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 449–459.

Ebenhofer, Gerhard, Martijn Rooker, and Simon Falsig (2011). “Generic and reconfigurable IEC 61499 function blocks for advanced platform independent engineering”. In: 2011 9th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics. IEEE, pp. 591–596.

Strasser, Thomas, Martijn Rooker, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2011). “An IEC 61499 distributed control concept for reconfigurable robots”. In: International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology 3.3-4, pp. 344–359.

Schimmel, Andreas, Alois Zoitl, Roman Froschauer, Martijn Rooker, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2010). “Model-driven communication routing in industrial automation and control systems”. In: 2010 8th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics. IEEE, pp. 896–901.

Strasser, Thomas, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Martijn Rooker, and Ingo Hegny (2010). “Domain-specific design of industrial automation and control systems: The medeia approach”. In: IFAC Proceedings Volumes 43.4, pp. 18–23.

Strasser, Thomas, Alois Zoitl, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2010). “4DIAC–Ein Open Source Framework für verteilte industrielle Automatisierungs-und Steuerungssysteme”. In: INFORMATIK 2010. Service Science–Neue Perspektiven für die Informatik. Band 1.

Wenger, Monika, Alois Zoitl, Roman Froschauer, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, and Thomas Strasser (2010). “Model-driven engineering of networked industrial automation systems”. In: 2010 8th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics. IEEE, pp. 902–907.

Rooker, Martijn N, Gerhard Ebenhofer, and Thomas Strasser (2009). “Reconfigurable control in distributed automation systems”. In: 2009 ASME/IFToMM International Conference on Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Robots. IEEE, pp. 705–714.

Ferrarini, Luca, Carlo Veber, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Martijn Rooker, Thomas Strasser, Marco Colla, Ingo Hegny, Christoph Karl Sünder, and Monika Wenger (2008). “State-Of-The-Art And Technology Review Report”. In.

Rooker, Martijn N, Thomas Strasser, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Michael Hofmann, and Ricardo Velez Osuna (2008). “Modeling flexible mechatronical based assembly systems through simulation support”. In: 2008 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. IEEE, pp. 452–455.

Strasser, T, MN Rooker, and G Ebenhofer (2008). “Distributed control concept for a 6-DOF reconfigurable robot arm”. In: Innovation production machines and systems: Fourth I* Proms Virtual International Conference.

Strasser, Thomas, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Ingo Hegny, Monika Wenger, Christoph Sunder, Allan Martel, and Antonio Valentini (2008). “Multi-domain model-driven design of industrial automation and control systems”. In: 2008 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. IEEE, pp. 1067–1071.

Strasser, Thomas, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Alois Zoitl, Christoph Sunder, Antonio Valentini, and Allan Martel (2008a). “Framework for distributed industrial automation and control (4DIAC)”. In: 2008 6th IEEE international conference on industrial informatics. IEEE, pp. 283–288.

Strasser, Thomas, Martijn Rooker, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Alois Zoitl, Christoph Sunder, Antonio Valentini, and Allan Martel (2008b). “Structuring of large scale distributed control programs with IEC 61499 subapplications and a hierarchical plant structure model”. In: 2008 IEEE international conference on emerging technologies and factory automation. IEEE, pp. 934–941.

Sünder, Christoph Karl, Alois Zoitl, Oliver Hummer-Koppendorfer, Thomas Strasser, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Martijn Rooker, and Gerold Kerbleder (2008). “4DIAC-Framework for Distributed Industrial Automation Control”. In: 10. Fachtagung EKA 2008 Entwurf komplexer Automatisierungssysteme. Institut für Automation und Kommunikation, Magdeburg, pp. 163–174.

Pichler, A, H Bauer, C Eberst, C Heindl, and J Minichberger (2007). “Advanced 3D Imaging Technology for Autonomous Manufacturing Systems”. In: Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice. Springer Berlin Heidelberg Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 87–97.

Pichler, Andreas, Harald Bauer, Christoph Heindl, Jürgen Minichberger, and Christof Eberst (2007). “Recognition and 6DOF localisation of parts for Lotsize1 automation”. In: IFAC Proceedings Volumes 40.3, pp. 265–270.

Rooker, Martijn N, Christoph Sünder, Thomas Strasser, Alois Zoitl, Oliver Hummer, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2007). “Zero downtime reconfiguration of distributed automation systems: The εcedac approach”. In: Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems for Manufacturing: Third International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2007, Regensburg, Germany, September 3-5, 2007. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 326–337.

Hummer, Oliver, C Sunder, Alois Zoitl, Thomas Strasser, Martijn N Rooker, and Gerhard Ebenhofer (2006). “Towards zero-downtime evolution of distributed control applications via evolution control based on IEC 61499”. In: 2006 IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. IEEE, pp. 1285–1292.

Pichler, A, H Bauer, C Eberst, C Heindl, and J Minichberger (2006). “Towards more agility in robot painting through 3d object recognition”. In: Intelligent production machines and systems. Elsevier Science Ltd, pp. 608–613.

Strasser, Thomas, Ingomar Müller, Mario Schüpany, Gerhard Ebenhofer, Roland Mungenast, C Sünder, Alois Zoitl, Oliver Hummer, Siegmar Thomas, and Heinrich Steininger (2006). “An advanced engineering environment for distributed & reconfigurable industrial automation & control systems based on IEC 61499”. In: Intelligent Production Machines and Systems. Elsevier Science Ltd, pp. 493–498.

Bauer, H (2001). “LACKIERTECHNIK-Der Lack ist ab-Induktive Ent-lackung mit dem Paint-Ex-Verfahren”. In: Metalloberflache-Beschichten von Metall und Kunststoff 55.2, pp. 36–36.

Your Contact

DI (FH) Harald Bauer
Head of Visual Computing

+43 7252 885 302
harald.bauer@nullprofactor.at

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