NVIDIA FINALLY ANNOUNCED ITS VR PLATFORM HOLODECK
Nvidia announced this week that it has opened early access to Nvidia Holodeck, its intelligent virtual reality platform, for select designers and developers.
“Nvidia Holodeck empowers designers to bring peers, partners and customers along the design journey to explore intricate, life-like 3D worlds together and ensure that the best ideas are discovered,” said Bob Pette, vice president of Professional Visualization at Nvidia. “It’s an unparalleled environment for deploying and testing AI-based agents — and will only get better as we add more AI capabilities.”
See the full story here: https://vrworld.com/2017/10/14/nvidia-finally-announced-vr-platform-holodeck/
Jewellers use virtual reality to give unique experience to customers
"The buyer needs to just wear the VR headset and feel she is in a virtual showroom. The user can get virtual in-store experience of choosing any jewellery, seeing the piece from different angles, and zoom in on the item to appreciate intricate designs,” said Balram Garg, Managing Director of PC Jeweller.
NEWSKellogg’s replaces cereal toys with augmented reality trick or treat experience
Kellogg’s has partnered with media identifying platform Shazam to create an augmented reality Halloween trick or treat experience for selected Kellogg’s cereal packs.
In conjunction with creative agency Orchard, selected cereal boxes will display a Shazam code which will take customers to Kellogg’s Amazing Creations website, where they can find Halloween recipes and trick or treat activities including slime thrown in the face, a hula-hooping mummy and a cheeky ghost.
See the full story here: https://mumbrella.com.au/kelloggs-replaces-cereal-toys-with-augmented-reality-trick-or-treat-experience-477712
Virtual reality for defence less about ‘reality’ than results
However, the need for realism has different connotations for the defence customer than for the average consumer. Experts say high-end graphics are in less demand than true operational outcome. But despite this key difference, the defence world is relying heavily on the entertainment industry to advance its leading solutions.
“Because we use commercial gaming technology, we can exploit the investments that industry has made,” says Simon Luck, head of systems and information assurance at BMT Defence Services (BMT).
Engage has been used to immerse users into an environment of explosive ordnance disposal in order to familiarise them with the right controls and procedures for that environment.
The company’s latest effort is the QEC Walkthrough, a virtual guide to the Royal Navy’s brand new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. With 3,000 compartments, this gigantic platform requires those stationed inside it to have a deep, working knowledge of how to navigate their way around. As users can form a working knowledge of the quickest escape routes and emergency operating procedures that would be costly to attempt to perform on the real vessel, the program is touted as a major benefit to mariner safety.
“The most important part of the design is determining what the training objectives are, what the users’ roles are, and what the outcomes need to be. We develop simulation around that.”
“So the end product doesn’t have to be identical to the real world. Much of it comes back to the experience and engagement of the provider. If we understand the customer and can deliver enough that they meet their goals, when it comes down to it, that’s all that matters.”
Meanwhile, QinetiQ is also embracing the incremental developments of consumer technology – including the recent elimination of ‘simulation sickness’ – as a means of expanding the overall scale of its offering.
See the full story here: https://www.defenceiq.com/news/virtual-reality-for-defence-less-about-reality
PTC AR advances
...while meeting with Michael Campbell, executive vice president of PTC at the IoT Solutions World Congress in Barcelona, I learned about...
The three announcements Campbell referenced at the IoT Solutions World Congress included:
- The addition of Model Targets to Vuforia (PTC’s AR platform). Model Targets is a new feature that allows for attaching content to objects that have not been recognizable using existing computer vision technology. Campbell says that, with Model Targets, content can be attached to objects such as automobiles, appliances, industrial equipment and machinery to enable a new class of AR content that can replace traditional user manuals and technical service instructions. Model Targets enable the recognition and tracking of objects based on shape from pre-existing 3D models and does not require an AR marker. Campbell says this high-fidelity object recognition provides more accurate positioning so that “3D content can be aligned with greater precision for use cases where step-by-step instructions and product data are overlaid onto the physical product.”
- Vuforia now supports Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore (for bringing AR experiences to mobile iOS and Android mobile devices). According to PTC, Vuforia has powered more than 475 million installs of AR apps from the App Store and Google Play.
- The release of the Vuforia Chalk App, which allows people in different locations to share a live view of the same environment and draw simple annotations called Chalk Marks.
See the full story here: https://www.automationworld.com/augmented-reality-continues-its-advance-industry
Magic Leap vets raise $3.5M for new virtual reality prototyping platform Torch
The idea is to make 3D prototyping fast and simple, even for those who aren’t technically advanced with VR and AR software development.
“We are establishing a new space of pre-production workflow for AR and VR applications that we haven’t seen yet,” Torch 3D CEO Paul Reynolds told GeekWire. “Based on several months of research, the most used alternative we see is still pencil and paper.
“Torch 3D’s data-driven approach reduces the prototyping and design phase of 3D app development from days to hours,” Jim McLean, managing partner at Silicon Valley Data Capital, said in a statement.
See the full story here: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/magic-leap-vets-raise-3-5m-new-virtual-reality-prototyping-platform-torch/
Stahlwille brings augmented reality to handtools
German torque tool and handtools specialist STAHLWILLE has introduced augmented reality to handtools.
The innovation has been developed with oculavis, resulting in a smart visor prototype that will safely guide an end user through a wide range of different joints.
The system is capable of reducing training phases and accelerating the fastener-tightening process. At the same time, it ensures a much improved safety level in the case of safety-critical fasteners, the duo said.
See the full story here: http://torque-expo.com/stahlwille-brings-augmented-reality-to-handtools
Laurie Anderson’s Dark VR Art Makes You ‘Fly Through Stories’
Avante-garde performance artist Laurie Anderson has created a VR experience. Her latest work with Taiwanese artist-programmer Hsin-Chien Huang, Chalkroom, lets you float through a virtual world made of letters while the O Superman singer narrates.
“It’s made of words and stories and it’s a big kind of edifice covered with language and drawings,” Anderson said in an interview with Louisiana Channel. “I wanted to see what it would be like to travel through stories.”
“[Chalkroom] is a library of stories, and no one will ever find them all,” Anderson said.
See the full story here: https://vrscout.com/news/laurie-anderson-vr-chalkroom/
