Trimble and Microsoft Hololens; This Is What A Mixed Reality Hard Hat Looks Like
Which is how Microsoft finds itself in the somewhat unlikely position of endorsing a hard hat. They have been working with Trimble to come up with a design complete with MSA V-Gard hard hat, suspension system, and quick-release accessory clips. All of which allow workers to wear the HoloLens comfortably without voiding the warranty of the $3,000 device.
It also meets basic impact protection requirements of ANSI Z87.1, CSA Z94.3 and EN 166 (the most common protective glass certification standards) and IP50 rated testing, meaning the device will be able to perform protected from dust. And while that might not sound like the sexiest list of features, it seems to have got this construction crew excited enough in the demo video below.
The application they are using is called Trimble Connect. It turns data into 3D holograms, which are then mapped out to scale onto the real-world environment. This gives workers an instant sense of where and how various elements will fit and exposes mistakes early on in the process.
The Hard Hat Solution, which is expected to be released later in the first quarter of 2018, will build upon what has been Microsoft’s HoloLens strategy from the very start, focusing on enabling Industry 4.0 efficiencies and capturing the lion’s share of the enterprise market.
NextVR’s Latest Tech is Bringing New Levels of Fidelity to VR Video
NextVR, on the other hand, is one of only a handful of companies pushing the limits of production and playback quality, now approaching a level of quality and features that could properly be called ‘VR video’ rather than plain old ‘360 video’.
Cole says that, in the best case scenario with 8 Mbps bandwidth, the company can now stream 20 pixels per degree, up from 8.5 pixels per degree previously. Keep in mind, that’s also in stereo and at 60 FPS. The company plans to roll out this higher-res playback to supported devices (we understand Windows VR headsets only, to start) early this year, but I got to see a preview running on Samsung’s Odyssey VR headset which offers a solid step up in pixel count over headsets like the Rift and Vive (1,440 × 1,600 vs 1,080 × 1,200).
In addition to improved quality, NextVR is also adapting their pipeline for volumetric capture and playback, allowing the viewer’s perspective to move positionally within the video (rather than just rotationally). Adding that extra dimension is huge for immersion, since it means the scene reacts to your movements in a way that appears much more natural.
Since the company is using stereo orthogonal projection, Cole explained, wherein the scene’s pixels are projected on a 3D mesh and transmitted to the host device, new frames needed for positional tracking are generated locally and displayed at the headset’s own refresh rate (meaning, just like rotational tracking, even though the footage is 60 FPS, you’ll see 90Hz tracking on a 90Hz headset).
Apple Patents Optical System for Use in Both VR and AR Headsets
- The patent application goes into detail describing an optical system for use in a head-mounted display. This head-mounted device could be used for either virtual or augmented reality purposes — both are mentioned, but the emphasis, interestingly, is being placed on virtual reality.
- Additionally, Apple notes that long-term use of a head-mounted device can be uncomfortable. The patent also describes its methods for mitigating this issue — namely the use of more efficient lenses that aren’t bulky or heavy.
- Basically, Apple has invented a system that can display images or other content on a head-mounted device that incorporates more efficient and comfortable-to-wear technology.
Of course, since it is just a patent application, there’s no guarantee if we’ll ever see the tech described hit the market. So take these rumors with a grain of salt.
See the full story here: https://www.idropnews.com/news/apple-patents-optical-system-use-vr-ar-headset/62706/
How We Achieved an Olympic Feat of Immersive Journalism
On Monday, The New York Times published its first augmented reality feature. The article, written by John Branch, includes four AR moments and is a preview of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Readers are able to meet world-class Olympic competitors — the figure skater Nathan Chen, the big-air snowboarder Anna Gasser, the short-track speed skater J.R. Celski and the hockey goalie Alex Rigsby — midperformance. Through your phone, the room around you looks just as it is, except the athlete is in it with you.
Another advantage is the mode of interaction we provide. Instead of the abstractions of pinch-to-zoom or swipe or click, we simply ask readers to treat the graphic as a physical object. If you want to see the form from another angle, you simply walk around to that area. If you want to see something up close, simply lean in to that spot. News becomes something you can see, literally, from all sides.
For the AR experience, we placed these scans into context — for example, placing Nathan Chen at the 20-inch height off the ground he would be midquad, based off photo reference and sometimes motion capture. In your space, this will truly be a distance of 20 inches because this is all true to scale.
Launching John Branch’s article was not just about this single piece of journalism. It was also about exploring what visual journalism may look like in the near future. We are extending stories beyond the inches of a screen — and in so doing, envisioning a world in which devices begin to disappear and the spaces around us become the information surfaces themselves.
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/insider/olympics-immersive-journalism-augmented-reality.html
Design Interactive and Atheer Partner to Release New Joint Augmented Reality Solution for Microsoft HoloLens: AUGMENTOR™ powered by Atheer AiR™ Enterprise
AUGMENTOR powered by Atheer AiR Enterprise allows any procedure to be authored from Atheers web accessible portal or in the field through DIs tools in the HoloLens. (PRNewsfoto/Atheer)
It brings together the AUGMENTOR™ purpose-built augmented reality troubleshooting application developed for the Microsoft HoloLens by Design Interactive (DI) and Atheer's AiR™ Enterprise augmented reality solution for industrial enterprise customers.
Atheer's award-winning AiR™ Enterprise is a breakthrough enterprise-class AR application that uses smart glasses to connect a worker's physical and digital workspaces – and provides a Web console that can be used for online step-by-step "taskflow" creation as well as secure, cloud-based data storage of those taskflows (allowing taskflow content to be accessible across the enterprise).
Any employee wearing a compatible head mounted display can livestream what they see to a remote expert. The expert can guide the employee and send them relevant drawings or procedures.
The NYT debuts its first augmented reality-enhanced story on iOS
AR can also be used to create unique experiences within more traditional apps, too, as The New York Times is showcasing with today’s launch of its first-ever AR experiment for storytelling.
In The NYT’s iOS app for iPhone and iPad, the company is debuting its first AR-enabled article, offering a preview of the Winter Olympics.
The article focuses on top Olympic athletes, including figure skater Nathan Chen, snowboarder Anna Gasser, short track speed skater J.R. Celski, and hockey goalie Alex Rigsby.
In the app, NYT readers can view the athletes appear in the room beside them, zoom in and out, and walk around in 360 degrees to see them from every side.
This lets you get up close and personal with the Olympians, where you’re able to see things like how high Chen’s skates are off the ice when performing a jump, the offset of Celski’s skates, or how far open Alex Rigsby’s glove is when making a save.
To get started, you’ll need to give the app access to your iPhone or iPad’s camera, when requested, then point your phone at some non-reflective surface, like the floor in the room, for example. When you see the image, you can tap to place it into position, then walk up to it and around it. You can even bend down and look up at the image, too.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/the-nyt-debuts-its-first-augmented-reality-enhanced-story-on-ios/