Learning Technical Drawing with Augmented Reality and Holograms

Technical drawing is very important for mechanical engineers. The ability to understand and work with technical drawings is a necessary skill for most of them. In general, first year students of mechanical engineering have difficulties in drawing orthographic views and perspectives, since they find it difficult to understand 3D shapes from 2D views. In this paper, we present several tools that we explored to help students visualize 3D models. We studied the most popular AR systems and show examples of using an AR system for the visualization of 3D models. We also present the creation of a low cost prototype, the EducHolo, that enables the visualization and interaction with holograms. With this prototype students can visualize and interact with the hologram of mechanical parts. Using augmented reality and interactive holograms we aim at providing a better perception of the model 3D shape and improving the ability of making the 2D orthographic views and perspectives that they study in the first year of mechanical engineer. Key–Words: Visualization; Augmented Reality; Holograms; 3D models; e-learning.