Gen 26, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Audi is taking the next big step in integrating digital technologies into automotive retail. The Audi VR (Virtual Reality) experience gives customers the opportunity to configure their preferred car at the dealership through virtual reality headsets and experience it in an unprecedentedly realistic way. The headset showcases the carmaker’s entire model portfolio, including all possible equipment combinations.
Source: www.autocarpro.in
With this, Audi has become the first automotive manufacturer to develop a dedicated retail software solution for virtual reality headsets.
Luca de Meo, member of the Board of Management for sales and marketing at Audi AG, presented the Audi VR experience this week on the sidelines of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit: “Hand in hand with our dealers, we are bringing digital innovations into the dealership in order to improve convenience and to provide even better advice.” With the innovative technology, customers and prospective buyers experience the virtual Audi world on a new level – in three dimensions, with all sound effects, and almost life‑like. They can virtually take a seat behind the wheel of their individually configured dream car or take a look in the trunk.
A camera tracks the movements of the user’s head and the system adapts the image displayed accordingly. The full spectrum of the Audi model range, with respective customization options, can be called up: colours, leathers, inlays as well as infotainment systems.
The dealer is thus able to demonstrate the diversity of the Audi portfolio in a very convenient way and to provide individual advice to the visitor. Audi will bring the new sales tool to first dealers by the end of this year – with particular focus on dynamic growth markets where high sales increase for Audi AG is being accompanied by expansion of the dealer capacity.
In future, it will also be possible to provide the Audi VR experience away from the dealership as a mobile solution – while visiting the customer at home, for example. Thanks to their large field of view and the performant positional and movement tracking, Virtual Reality headsets offer excellent immersion – the observer feels fully integrated into the scene presented. In use at the Audi dealer, VR headsets obtain the extremely detailed data records for the vehicle models from a high‑performance computer that assures superior image reproduction. The Audi VR experience is also equipped with high-end headphones by Bang & Olufsen.
They transmit the full range of acoustic information, from the sound of the doors closing to the 14‑channel sound of the Advanced Sound System in the Audi A8 and the conversation with the customer consultant. Audi AG has already been pioneering the use of virtual reality in automotive sales since 2012, blending digital innovation with the strengths and services of the physical dealership: Audi City, the cyberstore with a real presence, displays the brand’s automobiles on ceiling‑height digital powerwalls on a very life‑like 1:1 scale. There, visitors are able to configure their individual car step by step.
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Gen 26, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Most architects would acknowledge that the road from vision to reality is a long one, and this journey is one that Sydney architecture firm LAVA hopes to explore in a new exhibition at the Architektur Galerie in Munich.
Source: www.architectureanddesign.com.au
Taking place from 20 January to 14 February 2015, ‘VISIONAREALITY’ is aimed at giving visitors an opportunity to experience LAVA’s vision for the world of the future, a vision where man, nature and technology merge.
The buildings featured are in varied stages of construction, and range from small-scale innovations in Australia, to façade prototypes for high-rises in China, and a new generation of hostels in Germany.
The main exhibition room is wallpapered with inverted white patterns that emanate from project that have been built or are under construction. Technical drawings and diagrams of these buildings, which include Sydney’s own Martian writing centre and the Greenland Display Suite, illustrate LAVA’s parametric, ‘pattern to details’ design process.
Besides insights into individual projects, the display will also showcase the effects of LAVA’s parametric design process which forms a central part in the implementation of its ideas. A sound installation featuring the sounds at offices and construction sites reflects the spatial arrangements.
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Gen 26, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Design student Bryon Mallett might be onto something with this impressive virtual realty rig for playing and composing music. Finally somebody’s building something actually useful for Oculus Rift that’s not just a damn advertisement.
Source: www.youtube.com
Music production software can be really complicated to use, which is why most people attach all kinds of external control surfaces. Anything to make playing music more like playing music and less like writing a term paper. It’s better! But still not that intuitive.
Mallett’s completely done away with button-pushing and knob-turning with his Pensato virtual reality controller, made for the popular music production suite Ableton Live. To build it, he hacked together an Oculus Rift and custom set of VR gloves. The Oculus displays the software’s interface, and using the gloves you can reach out and interact with different elements of the interface.
The gloves use the magnetic tracking sensors from Razer’s Hydra controller from a few years ago to determine the absolute position of the gloves. They’ve also been outfitted with bend sensors so the gloves can sense the grabbing motion.
Pensato is focused entirely on the software’s Session View, which is designed for live performance. In addition to touching and grabbing elements in Live, he’s programmed his custom interface for a few gestures.
Much like most of the interactive virtual reality programs we’ve seen and played with, Pensato is a little clumsier than a mass audience would probably accept. Sure, he did away with the pushing buttons, but he just replaces it with some awkward waving. Still, the potential is apparent in a few moments throughout the performance. In particular, the ability to literally reach out, grab something, and move it somewhere else seems like the kind of intuitive interaction that electronic music production often lacks.
Besides the interface making music easier or more interesting to produce, VR also has the potential to spice up the stage a little bit. If you’ve ever watched some dude in front of laptop do a set, you know it’s not very exciting. I like the idea of standing on stage, waving your arms around like a a grand wizard as you’re raining music on an audience.
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Gen 26, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Virtual reality headsets are still a little ways out from reaching mainstream consumer adoption, but they’re certainly finding use in more and more unexpected places. For example: The British Army has begun a new recruitment drive that uses the Oculus Rift to put users inside a tank during a live fire exercise. The headset is just part of an elaborate set up that aims to have people feel like they are truly riding in a heavily armored vehicle. The first such recruitment demonstrations for the public began on Friday in London.
Before putting on the virtual reality headset, potential recruits are placed behind the wheel of a Range Rover. This is to add to the effect of feeling like being in a Challenger 2 tank, as opposed to sitting in an office chair at desk.
Source: www.slashgear.com
The simulation puts users in the boots of one of several crewmen on a tank on Salisbury Plain, with other tanks nearby. Those wearing the Oculus Rift are communicating with soldiers on other friendly vehicles, while engaging and firing on enemy positions. For those who haven’t yet made it to a recruitment demonstration, the British Army even released a promo commercial to promote the Oculus Rift experience.
As a recruitment tool, the campaign was developed by the Army’s training division, in partnership with London virtual reality experts Visualise, and the JWT advertising agency. This certainly isn’t the first time militaries have adopted popular technology for use in recruitment efforts; we’ve seen video games in the past, but will virtual reality, with its claim of putting users into life-like situations, result in an increase of people signing up for combat training?
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Gen 12, 2015 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
EON Reality to Showcase Augmented Reality App on Epson Moverio™ BT-200 Smart Glasses at 2015 International CES Conference.
EON Experience VR App Enables Access to Company’s Entire AR Content Catalog for Industry, Education and Edutainment.
2015 International CES, Sands Expo Booth #74728 – January 6, 2015 – EON Reality today announced it will demonstrate its EON Experience VR app on the Epson Moverio™ BT-200 smart glasses at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas at the Epson America booth #74728 in the Sands Convention Center.
Source: www.eonreality.com
EON’s team at CES in Las Vegas presenting EON Experience VR applications on the Epson Moverio™ BT-200 smart glasses, see the Moverio BT-200 in action https://www.youtube.com/moverio.
EON Experience VR is focused on education and training using augmented reality, immersive virtual reality, and interactive experiences. Through EON Experience VR’s K-12, higher education, vocational training, and edutainment experiences, students and trainees learn by doing and visualizing complex concepts.
These experiences are split into three major subject areas: industry (e.g. engine maintenance, oil field services), education (e.g. the human eye, solar system), and edutainment (e.g. “Play with Dolphins” and “Nefertiti”).
“By bringing EON Experience VR to the Moverio BT-200, we wanted to create a mobile experience that accelerated knowledge transfer and truly immersed our users,” said Dan Lejerskar, chairman of EON Reality. “Virtual reality is much more compelling when it becomes a seamless experience and augmented reality comes into its own when you’re presenting the user real-time contextual information.”
“We’re honored to be working with EON Reality, a veteran in the field of AR and VR solutions, who will be providing more than 100 mixed reality experiences to the Moverio Apps Market,” said Anna Jen, director, New Ventures/New Products for Epson America. “The Moverio BT-200 smart glasses provide developers the opportunity to create exciting consumer and enterprise Android-based applications that take advantage of the Moverio platform’s unique ‘look-through’ transparent display capabilities.”
Leveraging Epson’s patented core technologies, the Moverio BT-200 offers an unparalleled binocular smart glasses experience optimized for augmented reality applications.
Micro projectors located on each side of the lens project transparent overlays of digital content directly in the user’s field of view over the real-world environment.
In addition to the Moverio BT-200’s sensors for head-motion tracking and hands-free navigation, the smart glasses include a front-facing camera for video as well as image capture that detects real-world markers for augmented reality (AR) applications.
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