News: Scope AR Streamlines Its WorkLink AR Content Creation Platform into Browser-Based Tool

San Francisco-based augmented reality company Scope AR has made building AR instructional content for mobile devices and AR wearables as easy as throwing together a PowerPoint deck, primarily via its WorkLink platform.

For its next trick, ScopeAR has packaged its platform into a browser window.

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On Wednesday, the company launched WorkLink Create, a web-based application that, like the original WorkLink, enables users without coding or 3D modeling experience to create AR workflows to guide workers through processes and procedures.

"We set out to make the creation of 3D AR content as fast and easy as recording iMovie or creating a PowerPoint," said Scott Montgomerie, CEO of Scope AR, in a statement. "Using our technology platform, any user can easily author their specific knowledge into WorkLink to be widely consumed for training, complex assembly, and field service troubleshooting."

Supporting a range of computer-aided drafting (CAD) file formats, WorkLink Create employs a drag-and-drop interface similar to familiar movie editing programs, like the aforementioned iMovie, for designing AR scenes. Users can add stock animation to the scene and insert instructional prompts as well. When complete, users publish content to their assigned WorkLink account, making the content available to specified users via their own mobile devices, smartglasses, or AR headsets.

While Apple, Snapchat, Facebook, Unity, and Adobe are opening doors for non-coders to create consumer-facing AR experiences, Scope AR is among a segment AR software makers, including Ubimax and Upskill, that have AR content creation even easier for enterprise business use cases.

Scope AR clients like Lockheed Martin, which used WorkLink as part of its process for building the Orion manned spacecraft, can attest to its ease of use.

"In the past, we would have developers spend months developing these types of applications. With Scope AR's WorkLink platform, we're bringing this down to 28 minutes, and four minutes for an additional panel," said Shelley Peterson, an associate fellow at Lockheed Martin. "The ramp-up time on the platform has also been reduced significantly. We can bring in a new developer, have them go through a half-day training online and they can start creating work instructions."

Speaking from personal corporate experience, IT departments have finite resources, and making a business case to assign software developers to a project as well as prioritize it over other objectives can derail or otherwise slow progress.

But, if a department manager, subject-matter expert, or organizational instructor can pull together AR instructions without pulling in IT resources, then they can leap over such obstacles.

In these scenarios, platforms like WorkLink Create practically pay for themselves by facilitating not only greater productivity but also ease of deployment.