The Role and Benefits of AR Technology:

The Effect of Visual Sharing on Site

In recent years, the use of AR/MR technology has been rapidly advancing in the construction and civil engineering sectors. In infrastructure projects, AR is increasingly being used for purposes such as presentations, remote site attendance, and consensus building. By using AR, you can overlay the design's final image on the actual environment from the design phase, making it easier to build consensus with the client and improving customer satisfaction.

In other words, information that was difficult to convey using only drawings or words can now be intuitively shared by displaying it in 3D within the real-world space through AR. This reduces discrepancies in understanding and leads to smoother decision-making. For example, AR technology allows stakeholders, including the client, to see a full-scale model of the structure to be installed on-site. This enables intuitive understanding of the completed project, removing concerns about the final result and allowing earlier detection and correction of design issues or site inconsistencies.

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Specific Examples of Facilitating Consensus Building with Clients

AR is also a powerful tool in the process of gaining understanding and agreement from clients. Below are specific scenarios where AR has facilitated smoother consensus-building:

• Pre-Confirmation of Design Changes:When a design change is needed during construction, AR allows the proposed model to be projected on-site, enabling the client to visualize and confirm the changes before any work begins. For example, if additional structures or changes in shape are needed, showing the changes directly on-site allows the client to intuitively understand the final appearance, making it easier to reach agreement on the modifications. By visually confirming changes beforehand, the risk of misunderstandings such as “this isn’t what I expected” is reduced, and the time to reach consensus is shortened.

• Visualizing the Completed Structure After Construction:Before construction begins, the final structure can be visualized in AR within the actual site. For instance, in bridge or river construction, AR can display how the completed structure will look within the surrounding landscape, enabling the client to concretely imagine the finished project. This provides reassurance to the client and is also effective for explaining to local residents. When all stakeholders share the same vision of the final product, consensus-building is significantly smoother.

• Remote Progress Monitoring:With AR technology and cloud-based tools, the client can monitor progress remotely without having to visit the site. For example, by uploading photos with position data or screenshots of the AR display to the cloud, the client can instantly access the site’s current status via the web from their office. It is also possible to share videos comparing the actual construction progress with the AR model, making it easier to share information and build consensus in a timely manner, even across physical distances.

Practical Use of AR in the Field:

How Consensus-Building on Site Changes
Let’s imagine a scenario where contractors and clients use AR to communicate on an actual civil engineering site.

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The contractor is showing the 3D model overlaid on the site through the AR feature on a tablet, explaining the completed design to the client. The AR displays the final shape of the planned road widening and the proposed retaining wall at full scale, allowing the client to "see" the future completed project while standing on-site. This makes it much easier for the client to understand the project, even for aspects that are hard to convey through words or flat drawings. Sharing the on-site challenges and the post-construction view through the tablet has been praised for its clarity.

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By allowing both the contractor and the client to view the same visuals and discuss them, misunderstandings like "this isn't what I imagined" become much less likely, making communication smoother.

This real-time visual sharing makes it easier to identify design flaws and discrepancies in understanding immediately. For example, if someone points out, "Will this height obstruct the view around it?" while viewing the AR overlay, the design can be immediately adjusted. By combining BIM/CIM models with AR for on-site verification, you can match the shape and dimensions of materials or structures to real-world scale, preventing design inconsistencies or mistakes on-site in advance. As a result, this reduces rework, contributing to shorter project timelines and avoiding cost overruns.

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The Impact of Introducing LRTK:

Improved Efficiency through the Fusion of High-Precision RTK and AR

What makes the on-site use of AR even more powerful is its combination with high-precision positioning technology, RTK. LRTK is a solution that uses a compact RTK-GNSS receiver along with smartphones and tablets to capture centimeter-level position data, which is then leveraged for AR-based site management. For example, LRTK Phone, provided by the Japanese startup Lefixea, is a pocket-sized RTK receiver device that attaches to an iPhone, transforming the smartphone into a high-precision surveying tool and AR terminal.

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With the LRTK Phone, a tiny RTK-GNSS receiver that attaches to an iPhone, you can perform tasks like surveying, point-cloud measurement, staking, and AR-based as-built verification—all with a single smartphone. This is expected to greatly improve productivity on-site, with each worker carrying their own device.

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Previously, positioning tasks were done with surveying equipment and drawings, but with LRTK, you can accurately project a digital 3D model onto the site. This greatly enhances alignment precision, reducing the discrepancies between the AR model and the real world, thus improving the reliability of the final design image shown to the client. Additionally, all the positioning data and photos collected on-site can be instantly shared via the cloud, allowing real-time sharing of the site status with the client and other stakeholders. For example, by sending a shared URL generated in LRTK Cloud to the client, they can view the latest on-site data and AR visuals on the web without needing to log in, drastically reducing the time lag in information transmission.

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LRTK Implementation Case Studies and Results

What results have been achieved in sites where LRTK has been implemented? One example is a road construction site where a construction manager began using LRTK. Previously, the task of confirming the as-built conditions was carried out separately by the surveyor and the construction manager. However, with LRTK, this task was completed simultaneously with just one tablet, reducing the work time by half.

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Moreover, data obtained on-site can be instantly shared with the head office or the client via the cloud, allowing for quicker plan revisions and approvals. This shortened the cycle for obtaining approvals and significantly reduced the number of days required for consensus-building. Site personnel have reported that, "It’s not just about paper drawings and verbal explanations; now we can show the client using AR, which clearly improved their response," and "The number of meetings has decreased, and the waiting time for work stoppages has been reduced." Combined with high-precision location data, AR is truly transforming the site into a space where everyone can understand, greatly contributing to building trust with the client and facilitating smoother decision-making.

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Efficient Consensus-Building with LRTK × AR

The use of AR technology is dramatically changing the way consensus is built with clients on civil engineering sites. Traditional verification and approval tasks, which were done via drawings and progress reports, can now be handled by sharing the actual site via AR, enabling discussions to proceed in a more intuitive way. This allows for quicker and more accurate decision-making.

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When combined with high-precision location technologies like LRTK, the reliability of the information displayed in AR is greatly improved, alleviating concerns from clients like, "Will this actually turn out as planned?" By ensuring that both the contractor and the client always share the most up-to-date and accurate information, the risk of misunderstandings and unnecessary rework is minimized. This leads to improved efficiency across the entire project and enhances the overall quality. Clients gain reassurance by confidently visualizing the final product and can give the go-ahead with satisfaction.

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In the future, AR combined with high-precision positioning technologies will become the standard for visualizing construction projects and building consensus. Through the visualization of the construction site with LRTK, both the client and contractor will be able to work together to drive the project forward, enabling rapid and accurate consensus-building. As demonstrated by various case studies, the benefits of adopting this technology are substantial, and its use is expected to increase across many more sites in the future. The future of construction sites lies in shared spaces visualized through AR, where dialogue with the client takes place within that space. With technological advancements supporting this, we should aim for smoother and more efficient consensus-building in the near future.