This project was a part of the work requested within Ario's phase I and phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) with the US Air Force—a 1.3 million dollar contract with Maintenance Next (MXN). The SBIR required a combination of designing UI/UX and functionality for the Ario platform, 3D assets, and photogrammetry solutions in order to support the needs of the project.
The ask was to deliver high fidelity models experiences to students using the Ario platform, as a training environment, to learn about equipment prior to actually touching any real-world assets. These 3D models were needed in order to create contextual, real-world scale assets for Airmen that are in school to learn how to maintain F-16s.
MXN is a part of an Air Force school house located in Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. The primary focus of MXN is to facilitate a rich learning environment for Airmen from classroom environments, virtual reality training environments, augmented reality as well as hands-on training for the purpose of maintaining F-16s.
The client came to us, at Ario, with the problem of Airmen facing challenges with knowledge retention within the classroom environment prior to interacting with real-world F-16 components.
Create functionalities to present Airmen with with courses, checklists through the Ario platform. This is possible through UI/UX design and prototyping course builder and checklist builder(Ario Portal); UI/UX design and prototyping courses and checklists (Ario iOS/iPadOS); purchasing 3D models as well as creating; retopologizing and optimizing; PBR texturing; image capture to photogrammetry; and adding the assets to courses and checklists. In order to deliver 3D model assets to MXN in a timely matter and with a degree of accuracy, we coordinated with the training instructors. This couldn't have been accomplished with out their feedback and testing.
Portal Improvements and Features Added
Course Builder
Checklist Builder
Courses (iOS)
Main Screen improvements
Capture data from MXN for Tool Trainer
Photogrammetry Process
Electrical Systems Knowledge Capture (iPhone)
Tow Line Knowledge Capture Course (iPad)
Landing Gear Knowledge Capture (iPad)
Engines
Airframe
My role for this project consisted of from the research, planning, and coordination with instructors, to 3D creation, optimization, photogrammetry, texturing and basically the full pipeline of 3D modeling and then finally helping build the tasks, checklists and courses on the Ario platform and adding and testing the assets from the Ario app. This project took a lot of coordination with MXN members located in Texas and the amazing work and efforts from Chris Jennings in order to get all of these assets delivered in a timely manner. This project also couldn't have been as successful if it weren't for the feature implementation for courses and checklist from the web team and iOS team.
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