Applying Augmented Reality Technique to Support On-site Rebar Inspection

Rebar inspection plays an essential role during construction phases to assure the safety of the construction. Usually, inspectors use 2D drawings and tape measures to inspect rebars. However, the effectiveness of the inspection is greatly hindered by indirect three-dimensional information in 2D drawings and visual obstruction of measuring by rebars, especially when the structural elements become more complicated. To address these issues, this paper proposes an Augmented Reality (AR) approach to assist rebar inspection, which includes a framework of inspecting rebars with AR models. An experiment on stirrup inspection is conducted to evaluate the benefits of the AR approach by comparing with the traditional method. The result of the experiment indicates that the AR approach takes shorter time for inspection but with less precision.