Visitors to a Düsseldorf trade fair could explore a complete digital twin of a plastic recycling plant using a gamepad, in a project developed by NavVis Solutions Partner Looom.
Based in Austria, NGR is a company that makes plastic recycling technologies to deliver maximum efficiency and sustainability. With a range of machines that lead the market for ease of use, flexible applications, and zero-waste technology, NGR is promoting a greener and more sustainable circular economy.
However, many of these machines weigh several tonnes and could easily fill a whole room. When it came to demonstrating their technology to prospective customers at industry trade shows, NGR faced a dilemma. How do you market your green business solutions without incurring high transport costs and – by extension – deepening your carbon footprint?
"Looom is always looking to implement innovative ideas on the customer side to save cost and optimize workflows."
For a major trade fair in Düsseldorf, Germany, taking place in October 2019, the company adopted a whole new approach to exhibitions. A strategy that helped reduce their CO² emissions while still demonstrating the full capabilities of their technology. And NGR achieved it without trucks, transport costs, or unnecessary stress.
How was this possible? They contacted Looom, an Austrian digitization agency that specializes in indoor mobile mapping. As a NavVis Solutions Partner of many years standing, Looom was fully equipped to create a digital twin of a recycling plant that visitors to the show could virtually navigate, inspect, and experience.
The team of specialists at Looom created the virtual tour after using the NavVis M6 with six high-resolution cameras and four laser scanners to capture an entire plastics recycling plant. They managed to record every detail and create a point cloud with XYZ coordinates. The result is a high-quality, photorealistic 3D model of the plant.
For the presentation at the trade show, Looom developed a custom interface on top of NavVis IndoorViewer using the NGR corporate branding. When it came to showtime, all the booth required was an 80-inch screen and a gamepad to navigate the tour.
Visitors were able to explore the plant virtually through a completely interactive presentation made possible by the combination of revolutionary scanning technology from NavVis and the bespoke gamepad application.
"Looom is always looking to implement innovative ideas on the customer side to save cost and optimize workflows," explains Arnold Wenger, Looom CEO. "Taking inspiration from the gaming industry with our GAMEPAD Controller App, we could enhance usability of NavVis solutions even further."
The benefits of digitizing a plastic recycling plant for NGR go far beyond a single trade show, however. The NGR sales team has continued to use the digital twin to present the plant to customers all over the world. All that's required is the link to the instance and a password.
In this way, NGR continues to distinguish itself as a future-thinking company and remains true to its values concerning innovations in plastic recycling for a greener economy.
Anyone exhibiting their products at an industry trade fair must take transport and logistics into consideration. Whether it's product samples, the booth design, or even the personnel handling the stand: no detail can be overlooked.
And then it gets even more complicated when the product you need to promote is industrial machinery that weighs several tons and is as big as a house. It's not something you can toss into the back of a taxi. But to not turn up to these trade events without your products on display would be unthinkable.
"Our client NGR can now effectively demonstrate their innovative plastic recycling technology while also reducing their carbon footprint.”
The ideal solution is the one adopted by NGR and facilitated by Looom, to create a virtual tour of your industrial machinery or facilities.
"We are proud to have worked on this project," enthuses Wenger. "Our client NGR can now effectively demonstrate their innovative plastic recycling technology while also reducing their carbon footprint."
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