Touring Weilheim in Mixed Reality: LPVIZ at ART TECHDAY 2026

Hop In! Immersive Driving with LPVIZ at ART TECHDAY 2026

On June 24, 2026, our partner company, Advanced Realtime Tracking (ART), opened its doors in Weilheim in Oberbayern for ART TECHDAY 2026, a full day of live demos under the motto “tracking in action”. Together with the ART SMARTTRACK3 camera, we presented immersive driving assistance with our LPVIZ system. The demo wasn’t at a booth: it was out on the road. Visitors took a seat in our demo car, put on the headset, and went on a guided mixed-reality tour of Weilheim.

Buckle Up! Two Worlds in One View

In-vehicle AR poses a unique challenge: virtual elements must stay locked to the moving car interior while simultaneously anchoring objects to the outside world. Our LPVIZ system addresses this by pairing lightweight XREAL headsets with ART SMARTTRACK3 optical tracking, and our LPPOS high-precision vehicle pose tracking system, allowing us to manage dual reference frames seamlessly:

• Vehicle-Fixed Content: Digital overlays, UI elements, and info panels pinned securely inside the car’s interior geometry.
• World-Fixed Content: Georeferenced spatial anchors locked to real-world coordinates outside the vehicle, staying stable as the car moves.

The Demo Experience: A Guided Town Tour

To demonstrate LPVIZ in action, we took event attendees on live test drives around Weilheim. Passengers wore the XREAL glasses and experienced three layers of context-aware AR content projected onto the real environment:

1. Local Highlights & Points of Interest

As we drove, LPVIZ displayed real-time spatial pins over local cafes, shops, and town highlights, helping passengers discover points of interest as they passed by.

2. Visualized History

We brought local history to life by overlaying historical reconstructions directly onto the modern landscape—including ancient Roman roads and a prehistoric settlement mapped accurately over the terrain.

3. Environmental Insights & Hazard Awareness

LPVIZ enhanced situational awareness by highlighting key geographic features—such as pointing toward the Zugspitze (Germany’s highest peak)—while calling out hidden road hazards, like sharp curves or hidden crossings that drivers frequently miss. The last point shows where this technology is going. The right information appears at the right place, exactly when the driver needs it, and the driver doesn’t have to look away from the road.

Use Cases Beyond the Tour

The same technology works for much more than sightseeing. Automotive teams can use LPVIZ to prototype head-up display and ADAS interfaces in a real car, on real roads. They can also use it for driver training, passenger infotainment, and in-vehicle simulation. As with all our products, we keep developing LPVIZ based on what our customers and partners tell us.

A Busy Day on the Road

The demo kept our team busy all day from the first ride to the last. Thank you to ART for a great event and for the close partnership, and thank you to everyone who took a ride with us!

Next chance to ride: Tech Seminar 2026 in Tokyo

Join us at Beyond the Dashboard, the LP-Research Tech Seminar 2026, on Friday, October 23, 2026, at HANZOMON LIFULL, Tokyo. You’ll hear partner talks on automotive XR and can try LPVIZ in a real vehicle on public roads. Admission is free; registration is required. → Register for the Tech Seminar + live demo Can’t make it to this event? We’re happy to arrange a private LPVIZ demonstration for you and your team. → Book a private LPVIZ demo

Marker-less Head Tracking with LPVISION

For our LPVIZ in-vehicle AR system we usually rely on outside-in tracking systems like the ART Smarttrack 3. These camera systems work very well and deliver almost optimum performance for the use-case, especially if they have an interference filter built-in to protect from the influence sunlight. At the same time they are relatively large and require some effort to install.

Therefore for quick and easy prototyping, we started exploring markerless head tracking as alternative to marker-based outside-in tracking. The LPVISION head pose tracker is the result: an advanced 6DOF system that uses a standard RGB camera and machine learning alorithms for accurately following the head pose of a user wearing an AR headset.

The diagram above shows the difference between marker-based (left) and marker-less (right) head tracking setups. Note that for the markerless tracking setup only a single camera and no markers attached to the headset are required.

Key Advantages

Markerless operation via facial landmark detection: The system utilizes AI-powered facial landmark detection and other computer vision techniques to track head orientation and position continuously. Because of this, there are no rigid bodies, no reflective markers, and no physical contact with tracking gear required. Ultimately, this creates a non-intrusive experience.

Single RGB camera replaces multi-camera setups: We have replaced multi-camera IR setups with a single, compact RGB camera – such as the Stereolabs ZED camera line (note that even though the ZED camera is a stereo camera we use only one of the the built-in cameras). Therefore, this dramatically reduces hardware cost and physical setup complexity, while maintaining the precision required for industrial and spatial computing applications.

Zero-contact setup and instant deployment: You can go from zero to tracking instantly. In fact, there is no room-scale calibration, no physical mounting of tracking gear on the user, and no warm-up procedure needed. Consequently, the natural user experience means deployment in the field is as simple as launching the software.

Optimal for vehicle-in-the-loop and cockpit environments: Unlike stationary IR camera arrays, this tracker is engineered for dynamic environments. Particularly, it is optimal for vehicle-in-the-loop (ViL) testing and flight cockpit applications – scenarios where traditional IR-based systems are difficult to setup due to limited space and dynamic lighting conditions.

Integration with the LPVIZ In-car AR Solution

The LPVISION head tracker is designed to act as a drop-in replacement for complex IR-based tracking setups. For users of our LPVIZ platform it is a light-weight, easy-to-install alternative to our regular proven Smarttrack 3 setup. The video below shows a test drive with the system. The tracking camera itself isn’t visible in the video. It shows the view of the camera including the detected coordinate frame on the left. The window on the right shows a simple demo scene that’s being displayed to the user wearing the headset. As the car moves foward the viewpoint in the scene moves in the same way. Direction and offset to the location of the car is controlled by the output of the markerless head tracking.

Conclusion

We successfully implemented a markerless head tracker that works with users wearing an augmented reality HMD like the Xreal Air 2 Ultra. While the solution is easy to set up and use, we were not able to reach the levels of accuracy achieved by marker-based outside-in tracking. Unsolved problems like detection failures when more than one person is in the field of view of the tracking camera remain.

In conclusion, the LPVISION head tracker system is great for prototyping and quick installations, but for applications where accuracy and reliability is essential we found that a traditional outside-in system like an ART Smarttrack 3 is the preferred solution.

We will add a quantitative comparison chart between LPVISION markerless head tracking and marker based ART tracking soon!

Strategic Partnership with ART and Hololight

The Vision

As digital data and physical environments continue to merge, we, Hololight, Advanced Realtime Tracking (ART), and LP-Research are announcing a technology collaboration. Our objective is to create an integrated infrastructure for demanding VR and AR applications that combines maximum precision with peak performance and data security.

The Technological Value Chain

Our partnership offers a seamless solution covering the entire process from high-precision data acquisition to fluid visualization:

High precision tracking by ART: Professional infrared tracking systems provide high-accuracy 6DOF data, establishing a stable and absolute spatial reference for headsets and objects within any defined volume.

Sensor fusion by LP-Research: State-of-the-art inertial-optical algorithms bridge the gap between raw tracking data and hardware response. This technology eliminates jitter and achieves ultra-low latency through predictive motion modeling.

Centralized calculation and streaming by Hololight: All data is processed centrally on high-performance cloud or on-premise infrastructure. Using proprietary XR streaming technology, the rendered environment is pixel-streamed to the headset in real time.

Decisive Value for Professional Users

By combining our individual strengths we provide the necessary robustness for mission-critical applications:

Limitless performance: Complex visualizations and simulations are no longer restricted by the limited processing power of mobile headset chips.

Maximum data security: Since the complete calculation takes place centrally, sensitive project data remains securely on the server and is never stored locally on the end device.

No trade-offs: The content overlays are as stable as rendered with native tracking directly on the headset, and with the increased accuracy of ART tracking.

Absolute stability: The combined tracking expertise guarantees jitter-free overlay of digital content, where you expect them to be and stay there, even with multiple users and during the most violent movements. This stability is critical for high-stakes training, high-precision prototyping, and technical development.

Outlook

As partners we are continuously evaluating the technology in challenging scenarios. These range from stationary setups in development to applications on mobile platforms to perfect the interaction between humans, machines, and digital data in every professional environment. Joint developments will be presented at upcoming industry events and technical showcases.

Visit us on ART TECHDAY on June 24, 2026 near Munich, Germany