Schlagwort: Vive Enterprise

  • BMW & ZeroLight Optimize Virtual Customer Journey With VIVE Pro Eye

    BMW & ZeroLight Optimize Virtual Customer Journey With VIVE Pro Eye

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Discover how the German car giant leveraged precision eye tracking to reduce rendering workloads and overhead and capture better business intelligence.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piflsDb02gc?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=730&h=411]

    “Now with improved visual quality and detailed customer behavior insights, the BMW M Virtual Experience is a powerful example of automotive marketing’s technologically advanced future. We are proud to see the impact this project’s continued progression has had both within our industry and beyond.” — Florian Stiller, Head of Event and Sportmarketing Central and Southeastern Europe, BMW Group

     
    The BMW M Virtual Experience is a marvel of modern marketing. Originally developed by ZeroLight for use on VIVE Pro, it allows potential customers to configure, explore, and sit inside a simulated M5 in immersive virtual reality. Be it paint, wheels, or interior details, customers are free to customize the popular, high-performance sedan as they see fit. When their customization is complete, they can even get behind the wheel and interact with features such as the steering wheel, console, and trunk—all of which can be reached out and touched. And that’s not all: when customers are ready, they can take it for a test drive on The Circuit De La Sarthe, one of the world’s most famous race tracks. After the experience is complete, each customer receives a personalized microsite of their unique customizations, a 360⁰ turntable to see it from all angles, and even beauty shots for good measure.

    This exhilarating, comprehensive approach to product discovery is primed to change the way people buy cars. And as more and more brands move to cutting-edge experiential marketing to enhance product experiences, BMW and ZeroLight will be at the forefront with VIVE Pro Eye and its precision eye tracking.

    How does precision eye tracking improve visualization quality performance? With foveated rendering, a cutting-edge virtual reality feature that enhances resolution in the users’ point of focus and reduces it in the periphery. By following users’ eyes in real time, BMW and ZeroLight can gather data on where they are looking and just as importantly, where they are not. Working in conjunction with NVIDIA’s Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technology, rendering workloads can then be allocated to the greatest importance. As this process mimics the function and design of the human eye, all customers will notice is a sharper, more realistic image while everything else blurs unnoticed in the background.

    While the benefit to the user is apparent, there’s also a significant one for BMW and ZeroLight: as rendering workloads are concentrated to the user’s line of sight, overall rendering workloads are reduced. By providing better performance with less processing horsepower, VIVE Pro Eye empowers organizations like BMW and ZeroLight to increase visual fidelity without the need for more graphical resources.

    Want to learn more about foveated rendering on the VIVE Pro Eye? Please visit ZeroLight’s tech blog.

    Precision eye tracking also enables BMW and ZeroLight to capture real-time analytics and make more data-led business decisions. How? By seeing what users see and when, they can go beyond assumptions and approximations about user experiences with quantifiable insights. At CES 2019, when testers completed the optimized BMW M Virtual Experience, they received a heatmap and graphs of where they focused most and for how long.

    With this depth of business intelligence and candid user feedback, BMW and ZeroLight can better understand user behavior and intent and come to stronger conclusions about their product. Plus, eye tracking at this level allows for opportunities to improve products in development, identify potential challenges, and upsell through the experience.

     
    BMW and ZeroLight know how to engage today’s customers. They make look it easy, but it isn’t; as any organization knows, creating compelling, unforgettable experiences for customers is work that never ends. VIVE Pro Eye is here to help. It already has by elevating a state-of-the-art experience with improved visuals, optimized rendering workloads, and deeper understanding for one of the world’s largest premium car brands. What can it do for you?

    Download This Case Study ›

    Website: LINK

  • VIVE & Motion Workshop Bring Full-Body Interaction To VR

    VIVE & Motion Workshop Bring Full-Body Interaction To VR

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Fast, high-quality mocap animation at 400 fps. Brought to you by VIVE Tracker & Shadow® Motion Capture System.

    Erik Bakke is the co-founder of Motion Workshop, a Seattle-based business that focuses on motion sensor technology and motion capture. We invited him to sit down and discuss his signature Shadow Motion Capture System and what he was able to accomplish with VIVE.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWBX6aE4qeA?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=730&h=411]

    Dancer Catriona Urquhart, equipped with the Shadow Motion Capture System and 3 VIVE Trackers, has her movement livestreamed into characters in Unreal Engine.

    Production of animation content has traditionally involved very expensive motion capture setups using dozens of cameras. This limited high-quality animation production to large studios with big budgets. In the past few years, advances in tracking technology have brought excellent quality animation production to smaller budget projects, indie game and film studios, and independent freelance animators.

    Motion Workshop offers a new hybrid tracking system using their Shadow full-body mocap system and HTC VIVE Trackers. The Shadow mocap system provides excellent, fast full-body animation up to 400fps with built-in VIVE Tracker support. The Shadow/VIVE setup provides drift-free position tracking and smooth, accurate full-body joint animation. Plus, VIVE Trackers can be added for virtual camera, prop, and object tracking.

    With the included plugins you can livestream into Unreal Engine and Unity game engines. Character animation, props, and cameras are all available in one easy-to-use data stream inside the game engine.

    In a recent mocap shoot with dancer Catriona Urquhart from Cornish College of the Arts, we used the Shadow mocap system with 3 VIVE Trackers to livestream the dancer’s motions onto a AAA game character in Unreal Engine. We started with the free Paragon characters from the Unreal Marketplace and retargeted the animation in real time using Autodesk Motion Builder. The results were composited and rendered in near-real time using the Composure tool in Unreal Engine.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=338xxSMqMoo?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=730&h=411]

    This setup is ideal for virtual production and doesn’t require a large team or a dedicated mocap stage to create great content. For very small teams, these tools are helpful in getting animation content and rendering/compositing arranged in one place for quick and reliable delivery.

    ***

    Shadow Mocap Plugin
    Shadow Mocap plugins are available for free on the Unreal Marketplace and Unity asset store. The Shadow Mocap system is available for purchase at motionshadow.com

    Website: LINK

  • VIVE Pro Eye Simplifies Input & Navigation for MLB Home Run Derby VR

    VIVE Pro Eye Simplifies Input & Navigation for MLB Home Run Derby VR

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Precision eye tracking eliminates the need for handheld controllers in VR, creating an incredible access point for first-time users.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk70dm3nCfc?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=730&h=411]

    Sports are all about moments. No one knows that better than Major League Baseball (MLB). The way we, the fans, absorb those moments are changing all the time. We’ve gone from peering over fences, relaying what we’ve seen to friends and family to huddling around the radio, to television, collectively sharing our amazement and disbelief. In the 21st century, though, digital mediums reign supreme as fans connect with the game through apps, streaming, and social media. And now, there’s another medium making its way to the baseball experience lexicon: virtual reality.

    MLB Home Run Derby 2018

    A moonshot in MLB Home Run Derby VR.

    Last year at MLB All-Star Week in Washington, D.C., VIVE Pro presented a unique VR video game experience in a whole new way as MLB held its first-ever Virtual Reality Home Run Derby Tournament championship competition. More than 300,000 people in attendance and millions through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch livestreams watched fans of all ages step up to the plate and swing for the fences in MLB Home Run Derby VR.

    Needless to say, and forgive the pun, it was a big hit.

    But the 2018 Home Run Derby VR Competition was just the beginning. For the 2019 season, MLB worked with clubs to bring Home Run Derby VR on VIVE Pro to select ballparks across North America so fans can immerse themselves in this all-star VR experience while watching their favorite team.

    VIVE Pro Eye Precision Eye Tracking

    VIVE Pro Eye’s precision eye tracking make VR experiences more intuitive for fans.

    Now, MLB continues to take its virtual reality game to new heights with VIVE’s latest product: VIVE Pro Eye. Rolling out later this year and beyond, this next-generation system will enable fans to immerse themselves further in Home Run Derby VR by enabling a more accessible and more intuitive simulation.

    Whereas other virtual reality systems fall back on familiar game controls and mechanics, VIVE Pro Eye’s integrated eye tracking allows people to navigate Home Run Derby VR through sight alone. Eye tracking follows and analyzes where users are looking, enabling gaze-oriented menu navigation and hands-free pointing, zooming, and selection.

    What does that mean for fans? No more complicated menus. No more ham-fisted VR controllers. Just a streamlined user interface and a more fluid user experience where fans can get right to swinging with less roadblocks and frustration—an incredible first access point for users intimidated by, uncomfortable with, or simply unsure of VR.

    Play Home Run Derby VR on VIVE Pro as part of this year’s All-Star Week in Cleveland at PLAY BALL PARK or on any of your visits to the following ballparks across North America:

    Arizona Diamondbacks – Chase Field
    Atlanta Braves – SunTrust Park
    Boston Red Sox – Fenway Park
    Chicago White Sox – Guaranteed Rate Field
    Cincinnati Reds – Great American Ball Park
    Cleveland Indians – Progressive Field
    Houston Astros – Minute Maid Park
    Miami Marlins – Marlins Park
    Minnesota Twins – Target Field
    Pittsburgh Pirates – PNC Park
    Philadelphia Phillies – Citizens Bank Park
    San Diego Padres – Petco Park
    San Francisco Giants – Oracle Park
    St. Louis Cardinals – Busch Stadium
    Toronto Blue Jays – Rogers Centre

    Website: LINK

  • LAI Games Brings VR to the Arcade Masses

    LAI Games Brings VR to the Arcade Masses

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride takes guests through the wild and wacky world of Ubisoft’s signature creatures.

    Allison Timberlake has been marketing LAI Games for the past 10 years. It’s her job to get LAI Games seen in all the right places and to ensure the company continues to have a reputation for quality and innovation. We had the pleasure of sitting down to discuss her company’s next big venture: Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride, VR’s first coin or card operated, unattended ride.

    Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride

    Step into the wacky world of Virtual Rabbids with the industry’s first attendant-free VR attraction.

    LAI Games has been in the out-of-home entertainment business for over 60 years and is one of the leading innovators in the development and manufacture of arcade games. The company’s newest offering is Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride, which is revolutionary in that it is an unattended VR ride with a small footprint. Until now, if an operator of an arcade wanted to offer guests cutting-edge virtual reality, they would have to dedicate a large space for a VR installation and pay people to staff it. Virtual Rabbids is a coin or card-operated ride that requires no attendants and takes up the same amount of space as other mid-size arcade games. This makes VR accessible to arcades of all sizes, from small mom-and-pop operations to out-of-home entertainment industry leaders like Main Event and Dave and Busters, who have Virtual Rabbids in every location.

    Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride on HTC VIVE

    Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride — Made possible with the high-end visuals and battle-tested design of VIVE.

    The game wouldn’t be possible without premium components, starting with the HTC Vive headsets that bring the game to life. Not only do guests get the best possible visuals, but the headsets are sturdy enough to withstand constant use. This doesn’t just apply to arcades, but also locations such as shopping centers and malls where there is no one keeping an eye on them. There is even a cruise-ship version that you can find on every ship in Carnival’s line.

    Add to that AAA content provider Ubisoft’s Rabbids taking guests on three over-the-top thrilling adventures, D-Box motion-controlled seats that precisely follow the on-screen action, and top-quality wind and sound effects, and you’ve got the best experience available in arcades today. Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride was awarded the prestigious Innovator Award from the Amusement and Music Operators Association, the people who make their living with arcade games, and is currently the #1 earning game throughout the US. Check out guests’ hilarious reactions while riding on the LAI Games YouTube channel.

    Tabor Carlton, Marketing Director for LAI Games said “We are proud to have changed the landscape of what is possible in out-of-home entertainment and bring VR to a much wider audience. We believe it’s the best technology available today, and it’s so fun to watch people ride it and have a great time.”

    To learn more about this game-changing attraction, please visit the official Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride site.

    Website: LINK

  • Introducing the VIVE Focus Plus for Premium Standalone VR Experiences

    Introducing the VIVE Focus Plus for Premium Standalone VR Experiences

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Today, we’re excited to reveal the newest premium virtual reality standalone hardware for enterprise customers, VIVE Focus Plus. We’ve upgraded the existing six degrees of freedom (6DoF) Focus headset to incorporate dual 6DoF controllers, giving users the ability to seamlessly interact with their virtual environment with the same freedom as PC VR devices. This enhancement also makes porting existing PC VR content easier for developers while making it physically more portable and natural to use.

    “At Vive, the announcement of Vive Focus Plus furthers our commitment to rapidly iterate and refine the VR market for both businesses and consumers,” said Daniel O’Brien, General Manager Americas, HTC Vive. “This rollout of Vive Focus Plus leads the way for deeper immersion, more realistic training and simulation, and easier porting of experiences from PC to the stand-alone category.”

    Blurring the lines between reality and virtual reality, Vive Focus Plus brings users greater comfort and full enterprise support. Resting easier on consumers’ heads, Vive Focus Plus offers comfort and lays the groundwork for extended sessions in VR needed by commercial customers. The headset also ships with several professional features including Kiosk Mode, Gaze Support, and device management tools to remotely enroll, monitor, and manage multiple headsets all at once. The headset will be available for purchase starting in Q2 2019 on www.vive.com in 25 markets worldwide, supporting 19 languages. In most markets, the product will include an enterprise license for use at no additional cost.

    Powered by the VIVE WAVE Platform with content from VIVEPORT, subscribers will also have access to a growing library of titles on the newly announced Viveport Infinity offering. Viveport Infinity is the first unlimited subscription service for VR. For just one low monthly price, members can explore a wide range of games, apps, experiences, and more. In addition to Vive Focus Plus, Viveport Infinity is compatible with high-end PC-based VR systems as well as the full spectrum of WAVE supported headsets. Members will be able to use a single account across their portfolio of VR devices when the service launches on April 2nd.

    NEW INNOVATIVE CONTROLLERS

    Vive Focus Plus offers two ultrasonic 6DoF controllers featuring an analog trigger that gives users the ability to control objects or interactions with pressure-sensitive input, making experiences truly immersive. Additionally, with the aid of the WAVE platform and SDK tools, porting from PC-based VR to Vive Focus Plus will be relatively easy for developers.

    Companies across the globe such as SimforHealth and Immersive Factory are already implementing Vive Focus Plus for medical training and safety simulation purposes. This all-in-one solution is powered by Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835 Mobile VR Platform enabling the business markets to collaborate and engage in new and effective ways.

    “In our dedication to occupational health and safety, we easily ported our entire Hazard Spotting range from the Vive Pro to Vive Focus Plus to facilitate our large corporation deployments,” said Olivier Pierre, COO and Founder, Immersive Factory. “Vive Focus Plus will perfectly immerse our clients in realistic environments enabling full movement, which supports memorization of process and procedures, and improves behavior by creating consequences to their actions. Having a professional standalone headset is very important for us to widely integrate and deploy virtual reality for workforce training at large groups, with plants all other the world, who previously saw the equipment as a barrier.”

    “With HTC’s Vive Focus Plus providing a high-end processor and 3K AMOLED display, we are able to create realistic and immersive 3D environments for our medical and nursing simulators, providing better training outcomes for HCPs without wires or connected computers, “said Olivier Gardinetti, CTO, SimforHealth. “Moreover, the 6DOF controllers have improved the way to perform specific medical interactions that were not possible with the regular 3DOF controllers. Now, Simforhealth’s simulators have a better, more comfortable user experience.”

    VIVE AT MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS

    Vive will be showcasing the newest standalone headset, Vive Focus Plus and the new Vive Pro Eye, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, next week. The company will be spotlighting innovative partner experiences like construction safety and hazard training, medical simulation for nurses and their own multi-user collaboration tool, Vive Sync, in addition to groundbreaking demos on the future of VR and 5G.

    Website: LINK

  • A Look at VR in Medical and Nursing Student Training

    A Look at VR in Medical and Nursing Student Training

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    AUTHOR: Steven Anbro

    Virtual reality has enormous potential for both current and future research applications in science and medicine. The social sciences in particular stand to benefit from using virtual reality technology to conduct more accurate research, better measure specific phenomena, and collect valid, reportable data—all common challenges in various disciplines in the field. We in the Behavior Analysis Program at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) put the technology to the test in a recent study. Read on for a look at our challenges, our simulation, and our findings.

    Effectively Tackling Medical Errors and Miscommunication

    In recent years, medical errors—primarily errors attributed to miscommunication among medical teams—have received increased attention. The call for specific research into them is ever-present. One proposed solution to communication errors among medical teams is to begin training medical and nursing students together, rather than separately.

    Through our graduate program’s ongoing partnership with the UNR School of Medicine and the Orvis School of Nursing, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to help orchestrate interprofessional trainings for these future medical providers. As psychologists, we are always asking ourselves, “Is this training/intervention/procedure/etc. effective?” By taking advantage of virtual reality technology in pre- and post-training assessments, we can begin to answer that question.

    The Simulation

    Using an Insta360 Pro camera, we filmed a short 360° video simulation where a simulated pregnant mother (a fully-functional “SimMom” birthing mannequin) is having an unexpected complication: a pre-eclamptic seizure. Her doctor and nurse then work together to address the complication, while also directly addressing the viewer.

    Figure 1. The simulation used in the current study.

    The students viewing this simulation played the role of a “recorder” – someone tasked with confirming and repeating back critical information (medications used; dosage). This simulation was filmed with a number of opportunities for recorders to respond, out loud, to what they saw and heard.

    Figure 2. A research assistant orients a medical student to what they are seeing in the VIVE headset.

    We had over 100 medical and nursing students view this simulation through VIVE prior to any training as a “pre-test”. We measured how often they responded to the simulation and whether their responses were correct, contained any errors or missing pieces of information, or if they simply did not respond at all. A subset of these students (20%) used VIVE headsets with built-in Tobii eye tracking sensors to track what they were looking at in the simulation, how quickly, how often, and for how long.

    Figure 3. Medical and nursing students gather for their interprofessional communication training.

    We then brought all 100+ students together for an interprofessional team communication training (TeamSTEPPS®), followed by another round in VIVE (their “post-test”) approximately one week later

    What Did We Find, and Where is This Going?
    After their training, students across the board increased the number of times they responded out loud to the simulation, with relatively few errors or missing pieces of information. Our initial analysis of those students using the eye tracking headsets shows some slight variation between pre-test and post-test.

    At this point we can’t conclude whether this variation is beneficial or detrimental—more research needs to be done in this area. For instance, we can assess how experts perform in these simulations and compare their performance to student performance. Do the experts look at everything relatively equally, or are there certain elements within a particular setting that are more important to focus on? Taking advantage of the simulation and measurement capabilities of virtual reality technology will allow many questions in this line of work to be answered and will undoubtedly reveal many future opportunities for research.

    Interesting in learning more about research at The University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine? Please visit: https://med.unr.edu/odi/research

    Website: LINK

  • Breaking With Tradition: How adidas Improved Their Workflow With VR

    Breaking With Tradition: How adidas Improved Their Workflow With VR

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    It begins in a place like this, but not like this. Above, a virtual simulation of the auditorium, generated by The Wild in VIVE VR.

    It starts off in an auditorium, much like the above. Teams trickle into forward-facing seats, homed in on a soon-to-be-occupied podium and stage with a projection looming overhead. On the periphery: a barrage of posters showcasing new product concepts and campaigns—all stories set to be told at specific times in the selling season. Attendees are expected to be familiar with each and every one of them, even beforehand.

    Then, the selling season begins in earnest…with a thirty-minute deluge of information. With a speaker and slide accompaniment, the meeting resembles more of a traditional lecture than a collaborative meeting. The goal for the product merchandisers, trade marketers, and salespeople in attendance? Absorb and digest everything you can so it can be relayed to teams, queueing up a series of hand-offs.

    There are questions: Okay, what are we trying to sell? What messages are we attempting to convey about the product? How does this all fit into the year-long, non-stop stream of content and products adidas puts into the marketplace? But really, this isn’t the place for questions—there are notes to be taken.

    Apparent and Unapparent Problems

    Needless to say, the process outlined above—a common and traditional one employed by many, many teams—was inefficient. Bringing key stakeholders together almost always sounds like a good idea in theory, but the reality for adidas couldn’t have been more different.

    Despite a concerted effort to work more collaboratively, their advanced analytics team found that their process was leading to siloed decisions and complications regarding cost overrun, inefficient workflow, and process. Crucial information from these sessions was lost and consequentially, it resulted in a full-stop issue: inadequate products being delivered to wholesale partners.
    A Possible Solution

    With their old process, adidas found that the inspiration and reason behind why a product was created wasn’t always making its way into retail experiences. The old process was looking beyond repair; it was time to try something else entirely.

    Their vision: a single space for collaboration; a place where someone, say, in marketing communications could grab assets from a virtual library for a specific product for the year; simultaneously, someone else in merchandising could do the same for products curated by the design/product development teams for the story attempting to be built. Then, together, they could see the culmination of their efforts in a lifelike setting and catch flaws before it’s too late.

    Less second- and third-hand information. Fewer hand-offs. Fewer chances for errors. Everything all in one place, available in real time. Not a bad vision.
     

    The Test Run

    The simulated retail space/playground for adidas’s design, merchandising, and communication teams.
    Working with The Wild’s innovative virtual collaboration software on VIVE VR systems, adidas created an immersive workshop—a testing ground of sorts for stakeholders with complete information just a few room-scaled steps away.

    Essential to this experience was a simulated retail space. This allowed for design, merchandising, and communication teams to see how their story would translate to the real world and function across a range of scenarios—a crucial phase that often came much later in the original process.

    With the ability to conduct work in one collaborative space and the ability to assess, change, and then reassess in 3D—with no cost incurred beyond time spent—storytelling and product offerings came together far more quickly; the problem of information being lost in spatial translation now significantly reduced.

    Lessons Learned

    Adidas wasn’t afraid to look at a broken process and say we can do better. You can’t be if you know what’s at stake: if you miss the mark on product storytelling, you’ll miss the mark on customer experience and satisfaction. It will be a waste of resources for you and a disappointing experience for your customers.

    With VIVE VR and The Wild’s assistance, adidas now has a chance to fortify their informational loop, get projects right with minimized back-and-forth, and most importantly, uncover potential flaws well before it reaches the customer.  
     

    Read the original article over at The Wild: https://thewild.com/blog/virtualization-decisions-vr-ar-revolutionize-work

    Website: LINK

  •  VIVE Sync announced to mainstream enterprise VR collaboration

     VIVE Sync announced to mainstream enterprise VR collaboration

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Developed By Internal 2 Bears Studio, VIVE Sync is to Pilot in December

    At a press event in San Francisco yesterday, HTC VIVE announced VIVE Sync, a virtual reality (VR) collaboration and meeting application built specifically for the enterprise. The easy to access and secure Vive Sync has been built for the entire Vive ecosystem, compatible with the Vive, Vive Pro and Vive Focus. By developing this enterprise collaboration tool, HTC Vive is continuing its commitment to bringing premium VR hardware and software solutions to businesses of all sizes. 2 Bears Studio, HTC Vive’s internal development team, will begin selecting pilot partners to integrate Vive Sync into their businesses in December.

    Vive Sync is an intuitive VR collaboration tool where internal teams can meet in a virtual shared space, improving communication and productivity amongst organizations. Supporting up to 20 employees simultaneously, teams separated across the globe can meet to share materials, hold discussions, and make real-time collaborative decisions. With dynamic and customizable avatars, individuals will be able to have immersive and realistic interactions with their colleagues no matter where they are in the world. Through Vive Sync, participants are able to easily share materials directly from their server such as standalone videos, presentations, and 2D & 3D assets. In addition, Vive Sync’s 3D drawing capabilities allows users to mark-up and interact with these materials while the ability to easily take screenshots, video recordings and voice to text support promotes continued collaboration outside of the virtual meeting space.

    “With our offices located halfway across the world from each other, we built Vive Sync as an internal solution to the many pain points of remote work and collaboration,” said David Sapienza, Executive Director of 2 Bears Studio. “What was most important to us and what separates Vive Sync from other solutions is the persistent emphasis on security and ease of use throughout the application.”

    Vive Sync integrates seamlessly into a company’s own infrastructure, ensuring a custom and secure platform. With organizations able to exercise full control over their security, employees can share confidential and sensitive materials freely with their colleagues. In addition, setting up secure meetings in Vive Sync is a simple and intuitive process. Through Outlook Office 365 integration, users can easily set up meetings in Vive Sync through their email while the QR code system capitalizes on the Vive’s front cameras to allow for a simple way to join meeting locations.  

    2 Bears Studio will begin accepting partners into its pilot program next month. Additional information on pricing will be released at a later date. For more on Vive for enterprise, please visit: https://enterprise.vive.com.

    Website: LINK

  • HTC Vive launches full suite of premium VR offerings for businesses of all sizes

    HTC Vive launches full suite of premium VR offerings for businesses of all sizes

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    Today at a press event in San Francisco, HTC Vive announced a premium virtual reality experience for the enterprise market, including a new platform, new hardware, and new software available specifically for commercial use. This launch reinforces Vive’s increased commitment to bringing best-in-class design and software expertise—paired with the world’s best VR hardware—to businesses of all sizes. With this complete solution powered by Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835 Mobile VR Platform the enterprise market can now create, collaborate, and engage in new and effective ways with employees and customers alike. Companies across the globe such as SimForHealth, and the Volkswagen Group are already implementing Vive for training, simulation, and product design purposes.

    Today, Vive is launching a portfolio of premium products in Western markets, including VIVE FOCUS™, a new standalone HMD for enterprise; VIVE WAVE™ VR SDK, the quintessential open VR platform for developers to create content for standalone devices; and VIVE Sync, a new enterprise collaboration tool.

    Vive Focus: The Most Powerful Standalone VR Experience

    Through Vive Focus, Vive offers the most complete and powerful standalone VR experience available for businesses on the market today. With this launch, Vive Focus will be available in 37 markets worldwide. Vive Focus is powered by the Vive Wave platform and content from VIVEPORT™, this innovative standalone headset is ideal for businesses that want a truly mobile VR experience. It offers a stunning combination of power and portability and the highest resolution graphics available on a standalone headset, with absolutely no PC needed.

    With Vive Focus, no external base stations or sensors are needed—enterprises can utilize instant standalone VR with dual 3K AMOLED screens, interactive tracking, and Snapdragon 835 Mobile VR Platform. With high-resolution 2880 x 1600 graphics on par with tethered, professional-grade VR system like the Vive Pro, Vive Focus features innovative world-scale tracking and a 110° field of view. Users will enjoy a freeing, intuitive experience with no wires to pull them back to reality, built-in speakers, and up to three hours of active use on a single charge.

    The Vive Focus can be paired with the Vive Enterprise Advantage professional services program, which offers two tiers (Advantage or Advantage+) of commercial licensing, dedicated support, and service utilities for Vive enterprise hardware. Each program offers purchase protection with tailored hardware warranties, limited downtime, dedicated support and advanced device management utilities such as a Kiosk mode and a batch configuration feature.

    VIVE WAVE: The Most Innovative Platform for Superior Standalone VR

    The new Vive Wave VR SDK offers an open interface, enabling interoperability between numerous mobile VR headsets and accessories, with Viveport as the universal distribution and storefront for all Vive Wave devices. This allows VR content developers to more efficiently develop, port and publish content while offering a much broader reach of potential customers across multiple VR headsets. Meanwhile, hardware partners are able to focus on true device innovation versus fundamental VR optimization, with access to much needed quality VR content through the Viveport platform.

    Vive Wave is a clear step forward in bringing together the highly fragmented mobile VR market and enables developers to create content for a common platform and storefront across multiple hardware vendors. Today, there are over 150 applications available, with more in development, and the platform is currently deployed on five stand-alone devices worldwide. Since launch, 15 total hardware partners have announced their support for Vive Wave and are planning the integration of Wave into their products.

    Shadow Creator joins the Vive Wave Platform

    Today, the Vive Wave platform is also welcoming Shadow Creator as the newest hardware partner to adopt the platform. Shadow Creator builds Shadow VR, an all-in-one VR HMD that supports 6DoF controllers, has innovative functionality and capabilities, and exceptional performance. The device will launch on November 11 worldwide.

    “Partnering with Vive and Wave benefits us two-fold,” said Jinxin Hu, COO of Shadow Creator. “It allows us to achieve more profit models through the open platform and also helps us connect with more global users, thus enhancing our company’s international reputation and brand influence.”

    Shadow VR all-in-one HMD is equipped with a Snapdragon 835 Mobile VR Platform and Fresnel ultra-thin optical lens, using a self-developed holographic 3D UI Blue Cat and 6 degrees of freedom (DoF) capabilities. A 2K (2560×1440) HD display brings users a clearer and more realistic picture experience and the stereo dual-speaker sound effect makes the experience more immersive. Shadow VR is equipped with self-developed 6DoF controllers, which uses a nine-axis high-precision gyroscope, ray tracing, and a button layout compatible with most VR controllers today.

    Vive Helps Enterprise Partners Work More Efficiently

    Today, Vive also introduced VIVE Sync, a new virtual reality collaboration and meeting application specifically for enterprise that is part of the Vive Enterprise suite of services. Vive Sync is an intuitive collaboration tool where internal teams can meet in a virtual shared space, improving communication and productivity amongst organizations.

    Additionally, at a media event in San Francisco today, Vive showcased Vive Sync, as well as a number of partners utilizing Vive Focus to demonstrate enterprise efforts:

    • Immersive Factory is a French start-up specializing in the design of virtual reality training who provide companies with a different way of addressing safety, health, and environmental issues with their teams.
    • Innoactive is a Munich-based start-up that develops virtual, augmented, and mixed reality enterprise software. The company serves clients in the automotive, retail, aerospace, pharmaceutical, and financial sectors. Innoactive’s software solutions streamline the content production and roll-out of VR collaborative planning, simulation, and training applications.
    • Modal is inspired by co-founder Nolan Bushnell’s success with Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s, bringing social, fun, and active free-roam location-based VR entertainment to a mass audience.
    • Primitive is an Immersive Development Environment, a three-dimensional programming world where software developers can explore, interact, and debug their code in unlimited virtual space.
    • Qualcomm Technologies: A demonstrative experience for medical practitioners as a way to reinvent health care education and training, the Think F.A.S.T. demo immerses users in a medical VR environment where they can receive hands-on instructional content that simulates a real-world comprehensive stroke examination designed to assist in diagnosing strokes faster and in turn, reducing the long-term impact of the disease.
    • SimForHealth offers an immersive, interactive and collaborative approach to the training of health professionals, in line with the principle.

    For more on Vive for enterprise, please visit: https://enterprise.vive.com.

    Website: LINK

  • A Look at Sense Arena, VR’s First Pro-Level Hockey Training Tool

    A Look at Sense Arena, VR’s First Pro-Level Hockey Training Tool

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    We sat down with Bob Tetiva, founder and CEO of Sense Arena, a Czech startup  that seeks to bring the ice rink to hockey players’ homes, gyms, and training centers. Catch their virtual-reality-based training platform mid-October 2018.

    Where did the idea of using VR for athletic training come from?

    Well, for starters, my son plays ice hockey and I’m an amateur coach. (I’m just your typical hockey dad!) But one day, I was thinking about the length of your average training session, which is about 60 minutes. With 20 players on the ice, that means, statistically, each player is only in action for about 10 minutes. Then, the average player only handles the puck for about two! That’s no way to learn how to play.

    That’s when—with the help of my son—it hit me. What if we made hockey training virtual? The experience could focus on hard-to-learn, hard-to-train-for skills and drills while making it fun for the players.

    What can you tell us about the training and skills players will focus on in this experience?

    The player holds a standard hockey stick connected with a VIVE Tracker. They then see the 3D model of the stick in VR and perform all sorts of drills, just as they would on the ice. The player then gets to focus on agility, scoring, teamplay, and develop instincts on their own time.

    One of the most unbeatable advantages, when compared to being on the ice, is the ability to setup challenging conditions and situations that you can’t always replicate in real life. It’s the perfect tool for coaches who have been there.

    What equipment is needed to set up the Sense Arena training?

    It’s your standard hardware setup for the VIVE Pro, plus our special hockey stick with an attached VIVE Tracker and Sense Arena haptic feedback technology. A real breakthrough for us was the arrival of the VIVE Wireless Adapter. Our athletes perform workouts typically in a room that is 25 x 25 feet, skating sometimes on synthetic ice. They run all around the room, sweating it up like they would in a gym, all without a tether to hold them back.

    What can you tell about player feedback or any results you’ve seen?

    After only three months of Sense Arena use at Charles University in Prague, we found a 10-15% improvement in cognitive and physical abilities specific to hockey. Currently, there are five installations of Sense Arena in the U.S. and Europe. However, we expect to see more in the future. We received some good feedback at CES (The International Consumer Electronics Show) in January, albeit from a sport journalist and an ex-player: “This is the first useful application for VR I’ve seen so far.” Talk about high praise.

    To find out more about Sense Arena, visit https://www.sensearena.com.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8o90Jf_djM?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=730&h=411]

    Website: LINK

  • HTC VIVE & Immersive Factory Provide World Infrastructure Leader with Innovative Safety Solutions

    HTC VIVE & Immersive Factory Provide World Infrastructure Leader with Innovative Safety Solutions

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Like most infrastructure companies, Colas Group is not necessarily a household name—though they should be. With 55,000 employees on five continents and an average of 80,000 road construction and maintenance projects every year, Colas’ work and presence are felt the world over. In 2017, their consolidated revenue totaled 11.7 billion euros—with international markets accounting for 48% of this figure.

    As a world leader in infrastructure, Colas are at the cutting edge of seemingly everything in their industry, be it recovering and recycling waste, reducing their carbon footprint, or limiting the impact of their production sites on the local environment and community.

    Colas is also at the cutting edge of the thing they value most: safety. More than 50% of their budget is dedicated to it. Believing that any company that runs on human capital has a duty to look out for its employees, they have invested significant time and resources in safety audits, site safety briefings, dedicated prevention courses, and first aid with over one-third of the company trained.

    “It is not acceptable for an employee to be injured in the course of his or her work. Our goal is zero accidents, and to achieve it we use a range of levers, including safety training. Our ambition is to bring about lasting change in people’s behavior,” said Philippe Simarik, Director of Prevention, Health, and Safety at Work at Colas.

    While both the frequency and severities of workplace injuries are steadily diminishing, Colas took their efforts a step further in order to hit their lofty, but noble zero accident goal.

    Their approach was two-fold. One: focus on new employees. Internal research showed that over the past several years, almost 60% of lost-time accidents at Colas involved people who have been on the job for less than two years. Two: employ the use of HTC VIVE’s professional-grade VR systems and Immersive Factory’s active-learning training programs in their safety training.

    “We met with four companies to develop virtual reality training courses,” said Simarik. “And it is Immersive Factory that we selected, for the quality of the graphics, the sensations experienced during the VR experience, and sheer ‘playability.’ It was also an opportunity to co-construct and co-finance the creation of this module on worksite crush hazards.”

    Immersive Factory, working in collaboration with Colas, developed a virtual model construction site based off a real one in Nantes, France as well as a virtual scenario based on the feedback of prevention staff, field workers, and even the regional director. After development was completed and approved, Colas was quickly able to test the course out at one of their training sites.

    The result was not only an innovative take on safety training, but a fun and engaging one, too. Immersive Factory’s program appealed to both journeyman and manager; a digital native new to their infrastructure career and the veteran hungry for a new educational experience. Finalized in early 2018, the program was integrated into the newcomer safety days at the Colas Centre-Ouest subsidiary.


    “With virtual reality, we can experience hazardous situations without danger, but keep them in memory,” says Simarik. “The feedback from every level of the company is excellent. Most of the trainees react after the course by saying things like ‘from now on, I’ll be careful about…’; it’s a sign that the message is getting across.”

    Though Colas co-constructed and co-financed this virtual worksite and software, they want Immersive Factory to be able to offer exercise to other infrastructure companies.

    “When it comes to safety,” says Simarik, “good practices must be shared.”

    While the Immersive Factory’s program can be used across a wide range of VR systems, co-founder Olivier Pierre recommends one in particular.

    “We recommended that Colas use the HTC VIVE Pro range of VR headsets for their comfort, ergonomics, and professional resolution. Aside from the reliability of their devices, we and the HTC VIVE teams share a common vision of innovation and of the quality our customers expect.”

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1NbZFxKoqI?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&w=730&h=411]

    Website: LINK