Gyrolog — Towards VR Preservations of Gyro Instruments for Historical and Didactical Research

Abstract

Instruments for routing and navigation, such as gyroscopes of various designs, have been used to complement the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for more than three decades. Nowadays, Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), also called Inertial Navigation Systems (INSs) can be used standalone or be integrated with GNSS and other sensors. For example, nearly all smartphones are now equipped with MEMS gyroscopes. The University of Stuttgart maintains a huge collection of gyroscopes, representing all historical rotating mass principles. These objects form an integral part of our technological heritage. Thus, the Gyrolog project aims to preserve these devices by recreating them in Virtual Reality (VR). The features and objects under investigation have highly complex structures, which creates difficulties when attempting to recreate them as 3D models. Within the Gyrolog project, multiple methods such as photogrammetry, endoscopy and computed tomography are utilized for creating optimized 3D models. In addition, the integrated 3D models will be vectorized for VR/AR (virtual reality/augmented reality) environments. Finally, the 3D VR and AR preserved gyros are used for historical and didactical research purposes.