On 8 October 2019, Austrian Cooperative Research (ACR) honoured Aardworx, a start-up founded by VRVis employees, as "Start-up of the Year" in the context of the ACR Enquete 2019 at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The founders of the start-up are Stefan Maierhofer, Harald Steinlechner and Georg Haaser of our research group Semantic Modelling and Acquisition, as well as the former VRVis employee Michael Schwärzler.
The Virtual Reality Viewer "Aardworx", which was developed in cooperation with the ACR Institute Österreichisches Gießerei-Institut (ÖGI), allows a "look into the inside" of different materials by analyzing the data generated by CT scans of workpieces and components. For this purpose, a 3D representation is created from enormous amounts of data, in which it is even possible to walk around with the help of VR technology and the appropriate magnification. The interactive analysis and visualization of CT data, for example, is important for the non-destructive testing of cast metal parts. In contrast to standard solutions, the inspection also runs on the GPU and delivers high-quality results within seconds.
The "Aardworx" start-up is a good example of how innovation is created from basic and applied research at the VRVis from which concrete applications for industry can be derived.