For many years now, the construction industry has been working intensely on digitalization solutions that bring together the entire value chain of a construction site - from planning, production, ordering, delivery, and assembly - in a digital 3D copy of the physical construction project. For this, elaborate and close-meshed documentation is required to capture 3D images of all construction progress and developments sufficiently. A solution for fully automated long-term recording of a construction site would not only mark a significant milestone in the digitalization of the construction industry but would also pave the way for the development of digital construction site clones.

Intending to contribute to this so far unachieved dimension of construction site documentation, VRVis has teamed up with construction expert Rhomberg Bau GmbH and interdisciplinary planning specialist convex ZT GmbH in the " Spot:On" project to develop an innovative real-time capturing system using robotic dogs. The dynamic robot technology, which is still relatively new in Europe, has many potential applications, especially for the construction industry, where an autonomously operating robot dog equipped with the latest camera technology opens up the possibility of capturing the environment in 3D point clouds in real-time without interfering with the construction site's workflow.

The initial feasibility study used Boston Dynamics' "Spot" robotic dog, which researchers in our Geospatial Visualization, Semantic Modeling and Acquisition Group are using for field surveying and 3D point cloud scanning. The project's next step is to not only further expand the capabilities of 3D imaging through the robot dog but also to add immersive and temporal layers. The integration of all these components should make it possible in the future to create a seamless interface between plan and construction reality by using augmented reality.