This was a very interesting BUZZ that I found today and wanted to share with you.
Originally posted on: www.roadtovr.com
Finland-based startup Varjo, makers of high-end enterprise VR headsets, has charted a rapid growth, similar to the early years of Oculus.
Now with some 150 employees, Varjo wants to make its headset lineup more widely accessible by reducing prices so that smaller businesses can justify the cost.
Beyond the unique selling point of the company’s headsets—a novel display concept that offers ‘retina resolution’—Varjo is pioneering the way in which VR headsets could be a part of the day-to-day enterprise workflow.
This week at CES 2020 I got to see Varjo’s latest demo which combined the AR-capable XR-1 headset with the company’s ‘workspace’ concept which envisions replacing real monitors with virtual ones to streamline 3D and CAD workflows.
Retina Resolution in a VR Headset
Like Varjo’s other headsets, the XR-1 has what the company calls the ‘Bionic Display’; when you look through the headset you see a reasonably wide field of view but the center of the view has an extremely high resolution.
This is done with a novel combination of a small high-density display in the center with a larger lower resolution display for the peripheral view.
The result is genuinely impressive, and Varjo has reached a point where the boundary between the low and high-resolution parts of the image is nearly invisible.
With this approach, Varjo is the only company selling a complete headset that can offer genuine 60 PPD ‘retina resolution’—a detail which matches the limit of the human eye—at least in a portion of the field of view.
And while there’s plenty of value to be had from headsets which don’t reach that level of detail, it’s an absolute necessity if you want to fully replace real monitors with virtual ones.
To that end, Varjo is going beyond just building headsets. The company revealed its ‘workspace’ concept, a vision of office productivity where 3D and CAD workers can easily be co-present with 3D content and with the traditional 2D tools they use to create it.
Varjo’s Vision of an XR Workplace
At CES 2020 this week I got to see Varjo’s workspace concept in action. And while there need to be major improvements to UX and form-factor before workers will be wearing headsets at their desks all day, the vision that Varjo showed is quite compelling.
In addition to the Bionic Display, Varjo’s XR-1 offers the best pass-through AR capability I’ve seen yet. This is thanks to high resolution, high-framerate, wide FOV, color cameras, and Varjo’s careful calibration of all the pieces in the passthrough puzzle.
In the demo, I saw the real room around me through the headset’s pass-through AR view, along with a virtual floating window that mirrored the Window 10 desktop of the PC that the headset was connected to. Thanks to the XR-1’s retina resolution, I could read even the smallest text on the screen just as well as if it was a real display in front of me. On most other headsets I’d need to blow up the window to be 10 feet wide in order to have the same level of text clarity.
But it isn’t just about having unlimited virtual monitor real estate. Varjo showed how it can bring 3D content out of the monitor and into the world around you.
To show this function, the company pulled up a desktop window showing a 2D view of a 3D model, and with the click of a button, a fully 3D model suddenly popped into the room next to me at full scale. That meant I could stand up and walk around the model to see it in as if it was a real object before me.
For enterprises that deal in high-end 3D design (think architecture, automotive, engineering, etc), Varjo thinks there’s value in giving workers a way to seamlessly move between their 2D tools and the immersive power of VR in this way.
For example, in the demo, the company showed how someone designing the spatial layout of an aircraft cockpit could make some changes and then, with the press of a button, find themselves sitting in the full-scale cockpit to check how their changes feel right. Too far to reach the throttle? Jump back to the CAD application make some tweaks and then check again in VR with just a click. This sort of fast iteration can save tons of time for this kind of design work.
Varjo even showed how they could turn on hand-tracking so that my real hands could be projected into the cockpit with me.
While the hand detection and projection in the demo is still really coarse around the edges, the feeling of reaching out to the various cockpit controls with my real hands (and seeing them properly occlude behind the virtual model) was magical enough to make me frustrated when I couldn’t actually feel the model when I tried to touch it!
Beyond augmenting traditional 3D design workflows with the power of VR, there’s other obvious benefits to this ‘work inside of VR’ concept—like being able to instantly ‘teleport’ into the office of another VR worker across the building (or across the world) for a quick discussion about the changes to the model.
After a demo like the one Varjo showed at CES this week, it’s easy to let the imagination run with the possibilities, but there’s still mountains of friction to sort out in the short term.
Everything from headset ergonomics, spatially interconnected software and services, social norms of headsets-in-the-workplace, and plenty more will need to be forged and honed before it’s all smooth enough to present true value to an enterprise. That said, some form of Varjo’s compelling vision is almost surely the long-term future of XR in the workplace.
What is 360 VR Video?
360 video is a video that is recorded in all directions at the same time with multiple cameras. The videos are stitched together either internally in the camera or externally using special software.
It then forms one spherical video that is controlled by the viewer, enabling them to look up, down, right or left at their discretion.
Is 360 Video Virtual Reality?
I want you to be the judge.
Recommended MicroSD Card for use with the Fusion 360 camera
How are you watching your 360 VR Video?
Are you watching on your PC?
Is it Facebook? YouTube? Veer.TV ?
Or better still, are you using your Samsung Galaxy Smartphone with your Samsung Gear VR Headset?
Or are you using another smartphone with a Google Cardboard? Google Daydream?
Leave a comment below. Let us know what you like or don’t like. If you have seen a 360 VR video that you think is awesome, tell us, and we will feature it.
What type of VR Headset do you own? Or do you watch with your computer? Smartphone?
Do you have a VR camera? Ricoh Theta S? Ion360? Samsung 360 gear? Insta360?
And if you are looking for 360 Video Production Services, contact Al Caudullo exploretv@gmail.com
With 37 years of Media experience, we can Deliver More for You in 360 Video. Click here to see what our customers say about our work
Utilizing state of the art technology, Al Caudullo, and his team has been delivering award-winning compelling productions spanning the globe. Exotic destinations blended with unique cultural experiences give viewers an experience like no other.
From vibrant American cities like San Francisco and Las Vegas to the isolated mountains of Mongolia. From ancient civilizations of Cambodia and Myanmar to the lush resorts of Southeast Asia and beyond. All from the comfort of your living room.
