One of the potential challenges with Digital twins, Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, and the metaverse is the accurate representation of physical materials. Using physically based rendering with procedural or painted materials may “look good” for a gaming scenario, but what happens when the virtual experience is supporting a purchasing process or a scientific analysis? Accurately reproducing the textures of the fabric in a designer coat or the brush strokes on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZiC_as3fVg Way back in the dark ages of the late 1990s most people didn’t create web content and those who did worked for big companies handcrafting HTML and using FTP to push changes to the server. You couldn’t edit content directly online, it was very much an offline publishing model. Twenty years on Virtual Reality (VR) is in that same exclusive place with handcrafted content created mostly in big gaming...

Augmented Reality (AR) headsets could replace the smartphone as the way we connect because staring at a small screen is an unnatural and unhealthy habit. Overlaying imagery on the world using AR headsets would allow us to look up, reengage, and interpret information more intuitively in the context of our actual physical experience. Hence the scramble by many of the large tech firms to create the first truly usable AR...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oCdCERf50 Over the past 40 years, machine vision has become an important tool for tasks such as defect detection on manufacturing lines, sorting and identifying various types of products, reading barcodes, and even improving safety compliance by monitoring whether workers are wearing appropriate protective gear. Much of this has been done using dedicated hardware and software designed for very specific scenarios. Smartphones are disrupting this dedicated hardware model and greatly...

Great to be with Intel and Saudi Business Machines at one of the biggest tech events in the middle east. We were showcasing VR training and how it can help train staff where procedures are expensive or dangerous, allowing for multiple passes and easy recording and reviews.https://www.onegiantleap.com/en/home.html

Meta Platforms spending on Metaverse initiatives (Reality Labs) in 2021 was $12.5 billion and growing rapidly. A big bet even for Meta, especially in the light of a slowing core business with new challenges from competitors like Tik-Tok. Mark Zuckerberg seems to be truly passionate about the Metaverse, having thought about since middle school, and then acquiring Oculus VR for $2.3 billion in 2014 when it has essentially no revenue,...

Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Magic Leap and others have all announced large investments in XR headsets. But authoring XR content for the metaverse and building next generation applications will require a revolution in authoring tools. Today it is primarily done with tools designed for video game and film production. They can create incredible scenes, but content is costly and complex to produce. Umajin is designed for efficiently authoring applications for the...

Great to be have people visiting out space at the AWE show in 2021. It was good to be able to spend time with the international visitors (with suitable safety protocols in place). The [AWE.XR show] is focused on Spatial Computing including: Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR) and enabling technologies such as Artificial Intelligence-AI, bio-interfaces, haptics, 5G, streaming and more. Since 2010 over 5000 companies and...

As Published: Training Gets a Radical Makeover Through Virtual Reality The ability to train employees with more visually stimulating and memorable materials will have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the training. Research suggests that VR is a particularly effective tool for training that requires memorizing and understanding spatial and visual information, as well as for eliciting effective responses to stressful or difficult situations. Conversely, traditional classroom training can...

As Published: Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse: What it means for the enterprise The idea of the metaverse has been percolating in tech circles since Neal Stephenson coined the term in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. This was the year after the World Wide Web was open to the public, and before websites for general use became widely available. The idea is that many virtual spaces will converge with the internet to...