Enhancing unity-based AR with optimal lossless compression for digital twin assets

Abstract

The rapid development of Digital Twin (DT) technology has underlined challenges in resource-constrained mobile devices, especially in the application of extended realities (XR), which includes Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). These challenges lead to computational inefficiencies that negatively impact user experience when dealing with sizeable 3D model assets. This article applies multiple lossless compression algorithms to improve the efficiency of digital twin asset delivery in Unity’s AssetBundle and Addressable asset management frameworks. In this study, an optimal model will be obtained that reduces both bundle size and time required in visualization, simultaneously reducing CPU and RAM usage on mobile devices. This study has assessed compression methods, such as LZ4, LZMA, Brotli, Fast LZ, and 7-Zip, among others, for their influence on AR performance. This study also creates mathematical models for predicting resource utilization, like RAM and CPU time, required by AR mobile applications. Experimental results show a detailed comparison among these compression algorithms, which can give insights and help choose the best method according to the compression ratio, decompression speed, and resource usage. It finally leads to more efficient implementations of AR digital twins on resource-constrained mobile platforms with greater flexibility in development and a better end-user experience. Our results show that LZ4 and Fast LZ perform best in speed and resource efficiency, especially with RAM caching. At the same time, 7-Zip/LZMA achieves the highest compression ratios at the cost of slower loading. Brotli emerged as a strong option for web-based AR/VR content, striking a balance between compression efficiency and decompression speed, outperforming Gzip in WebGL contexts. The Addressable Asset system with LZ4 offers the most efficient balance for real-time AR applications. This study will deliver practical guidance on optimal compression method selection to improve user experience and scalability for AR digital twin implementations.