Setting

This was my project for the “Teamoriented Project” during my bachelor studies at the University of Applied Sciences Ulm. The project was developed collaboratively by a team of four developers over 8 weeks, using Scrum methodology for agile project management. Working in sprints allowed us to iterate quickly, gather feedback, and adapt our approach based on evolving requirements.

Idea

“Immerscale” is a web-based platform that enables accurate spatial measurements directly from photos taken with a smartphone. It’s designed especially for tradespeople who need to assess construction sites remotely. Using Immerscale, they can measure distances, areas (e.g. floor spaces), and other dimensions based on images provided by their customers.

The platform consists of two parts:

• Photo Interface (mobile): Tradespeople can send their customers a temporary link to this intuitive web app, which works on all common smartphones and tablets. Customers use it to take and upload photos of the construction site directly within the app. This ensures that all necessary camera and sensor data is included.
• Measurement Interface (desktop/tablet): In this interface, tradespeople can create multiple projects and collect photo submissions from different customers. Once a reference measurement (e.g., a known length in the image) is set, they can use various tools to measure distances, angles, and areas—such as the floorplan of a room—directly within the images.

The goal of Immerscale is to help tradespeople make informed decisions and provide accurate estimates based on photos, without having to visit the site in person.

Architecture

As can be seen in the architecture diagram, we used Vue.js for both frontends, providing a responsive and interactive user experience across mobile and desktop devices. The backend is powered by Java Spring Boot, which supplies RESTful endpoints for photo uploads and project management. The backend also handles authentication and authorization for both interfaces through secure cookie-based sessions and temporary access tokens, ensuring that only authorized users can access specific projects and photo submissions.

Database

The data structure is based on projects that can be created and owned by workers. For each project, temporary access tokens can be generated and shared with customers or other stakeholders. Images captured through these tokens are automatically associated with the corresponding project, enabling photo collection without requiring users to manually specify which project they belong to.

Deployment

The project was completely built based on docker, so the deployment was very flexible. For the scope of this university project, we were supplied with a virtual machine in the Azure cloud, where we then deployed the docker containers. If you are interested in the project, you can have a look at the repository here and try to deploy it yourself!