Category: Amazon Sumerian

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HTC Vive, Amazon & Mozilla Take VR Web Integration to the Next Level

One of the important factors when helping virtual reality (VR) go mainstream is its ability to browse the web. Being online and navigating the digital world has become part of everyday life for billions of people around the world, so it makes sense that being in VR shouldn’t hinder that ability. It’s only recently that browsing the web in VR has ventured away from viewing your normal monitor through a headset, and now HTC Vive wants to push that even further by announcing several new collaborations.

Mozilla Firefox Reality

The first collaboration is with Mozilla, with HTC Vive announcing that Firefox Reality will now become the default web browser across the product range, including Vive Pro and the upcoming Vive Cosmos.

Intertwined with HTC Vive and Mozilla is Amazon Sumerian, enabling HTC Vive developers to concept, test and publish VR-optimized websites, without requiring specialized programming experience.

“We’ve set out this year to bring everyday computing tasks into VR for the first time,” said Michael Almeraris, Vice President of Partnerships and Content, HTC VIVE in a statement. “Through the collaboration with Mozilla and Amazon Web Services, we’re closing the gap in XR computing, empowering Vive users to get more content in their headset, while enabling developers and businesses to quickly create content for these consumers.”

HTC Vive Cosmos

“Many industries are adopting XR technologies for a wide range of uses, including training simulations, virtual concierge services, enhanced online shopping experiences, virtual tours, and more,” said Kyle Roche, General Manager, Amazon Sumerian, AWS. “Until now, creating realistic XR experiences required developers to have specialized programming skills and learn unique specifications and deployment procedures, adding complexity to the process. Together with HTC and Mozilla, we’re making it easier for developers to more quickly build and distribute VR applications using nothing more than a browser and a URL.”

To help showcase both of these partnerships, Fidelity Investments has created a prototype VR website designed to allow financial customers to immerse themselves in their investments using data visualization tools, being displayed at HTC Vive’s CES Showcase.

As furthers developments from the partnerships are announced, VRFocus will let you know.

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Courses in VR and AR Will Now Be Available Thanks to Amazon Sumerian Partnership

Last year Amazon announced a new feature for its Amazon Web Services called Amazon Sumerian, a platform that would allow anyone to create full-featured virtual reality experiences. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) have now announced that it will be offering short courses in artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and VR thanks to a partnership with Amazon Web Services.

The new partnership between RMIT and Amazon Web Services was announced at the AWS Public Sector Summit and Canberra, Australia on Wednesday. The new courses will be using the Amazon Sumerian platform.

The newly launched courses includes Developing AI Strategy, Developing AR and VR Strategy and Developing AR and VR Applications. All of these have been adapted from the AWS Educate program, which was created to react to the changing nature of the workplace, and how immersive technology is increasingly relevant.

RMIT Online CEO Helen Souness believes the courses will allow individuals and companies to address skills gaps in AI and AR/VR areas, saying: “What we see in all of our industry conversations … everyone is saying the thing that will hold us back is a skills shortage,” she said the event announcement event, “My team’s mission is to build a community of lifelong learners, successfully navigating the world of work … yes, sometimes your degree is the right solution education wise for a person, but throughout our lives, certainly I know in my digital career, constantly we need to be updating our skills and understand the new, emerging technology and talk with experts.”

RMIT is also testing use of AR and VR to enhance the student experience by using an AI Digital Assistant and the institution is said to be ‘very conscious’ that VR and AR are heading towards mainstream success.

Amazon Sumerian-07-MannequinAsset

For further coverage of VR and AR in education, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Seek Launches Mobile AR Creation Studio

As augmented reality (AR) becomes increasingly recognised and popular among consumers, there is a rise in the number of people wanting to bring their own original content into AR. AR startup company Seek is feeding into this demand with the launch of Seek Studio.

Seek Studio is a mobile AR creation studio which allows anyone with a smartphone to create AR experiences and share them with the world, without needing to learn complex computer code.

Seek provides users will templates that can be modified and built on to create simple but effective AR experiences. In one example, a user can select a photo from their smartphone memory and outline a potion of the image to convert it into a 3D object, then publish the result on Seek. From there, the result can be shared with friends and family over social media.

Companies and brands can use Seek to share 3D models of their products, which users can then experience using AR. Seek plans to launch Seek Studio with six templates, with new templates appearing on the platform over the coming months to gradually improve the complexity of the experiences that can be created.

For Amazon Sumerian creators, Seek Studio will come with publishing tools to allow amazon Sumerian users to publish AR experiences created in Sumerian directly to Seek, allowing them to become accessible to users worldwide.

“There are a lot of great AR experiences being created by developers today, but they can be a challenge to find,” said Eric Johnsen, Business Development Director, AR/VR, at Amazon Web Services. “Seek allows for quick and easy preview and publishing of an Amazon Sumerian AR experience in an existing mobile app. Our creators will love this!”

Jon Cheney, CEO and founder of Seek said, “By creating a central platform for AR, similar to what YouTube has done for video, Seek aims to speed up the adoption of AR technology by lowering the barriers to entry. Seek Studio is a crucial component of this system, allowing anyone with a smart phone to begin creating and sharing content.”

Further information on Seek is available on the official Seek website. For future news on new and upcoming VR and AR content and services, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Amazon Sumerian Is Now Generally Available

A new part of Amazon Web Services was announced back in 2017, called Amazon Sumerian, and effort to create a platform that can allow anyone to create a fully-featured virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) experiences. That service has now gone into general availability.

Amazon Sumerian allows users to create realistic VR environments and scenes without needing to learn how to code or learn complex tools for 3D modelling or animation.

Once these scenarios are created they can be deployed across many platforms without having to use specialist deployment systems and processes. Sumerian contains a web-based editor that allows for the creation of professional-quality VR scenes along with a visual scripting tool that lets users control how objects or characters move, react and respond. The service also interfaces with other Amazon Web Services such as Amazon Lex, Polly, AWS Lambda, AWS IoT and Amazon DynamoDB.

The Sumerian service was designed to work on multiple platforms, and VR or AR apps created through Sumerian will work in browsers that support WebGL or WebVR as well as on VR devices such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or devices that support ARKit and ARCore.

Amazon have been working with a number of customers to test out Sumerian and create some proof of concept projects n order to test a number of different use cases, such as employee training, educational simulations, brand engagement, virtual concierge and design and creative applications.

Early demonstrations of Sumerian involved a drag-and-drop editor, a 3D object library and a script editor for setting up automated scenes and a system for AI hosts which can have simple conversations with players who enter the VR experiences, similar to AI assistants or chat bots.

For further information on Amazon Sumerian users can visit the Amazon Sumerian home page and browse the extensive collection of tutorials that are available. For future news and updates on Amazon Sumerian, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Amazon Sumerian Is Now Generally Available

A new part of Amazon Web Services was announced back in 2017, called Amazon Sumerian, and effort to create a platform that can allow anyone to create a fully-featured virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) experiences. That service has now gone into general availability.

Amazon Sumerian allows users to create realistic VR environments and scenes without needing to learn how to code or learn complex tools for 3D modelling or animation.

Once these scenarios are created they can be deployed across many platforms without having to use specialist deployment systems and processes. Sumerian contains a web-based editor that allows for the creation of professional-quality VR scenes along with a visual scripting tool that lets users control how objects or characters move, react and respond. The service also interfaces with other Amazon Web Services such as Amazon Lex, Polly, AWS Lambda, AWS IoT and Amazon DynamoDB.

The Sumerian service was designed to work on multiple platforms, and VR or AR apps created through Sumerian will work in browsers that support WebGL or WebVR as well as on VR devices such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or devices that support ARKit and ARCore.

Amazon have been working with a number of customers to test out Sumerian and create some proof of concept projects n order to test a number of different use cases, such as employee training, educational simulations, brand engagement, virtual concierge and design and creative applications.

Early demonstrations of Sumerian involved a drag-and-drop editor, a 3D object library and a script editor for setting up automated scenes and a system for AI hosts which can have simple conversations with players who enter the VR experiences, similar to AI assistants or chat bots.

For further information on Amazon Sumerian users can visit the Amazon Sumerian home page and browse the extensive collection of tutorials that are available. For future news and updates on Amazon Sumerian, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Amazon Embraces AR and VR With Sumerian Platform

Amazon is no stranger to changing company direction and expanding into new markets. Starting out as an online bookstore, Amazon is now one of the giants of technology, with fingers in almost every conceivable pie. Small wonder, then, that the company is working towards a new platform for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

The platform has been named Sumerian, and is designed to be an all-in-one development platform for the building for VR and AR apps for both smartphones and VR headsets, and eventually, VR and AR apps that can run direct from the web browser.

Amazon have chosen not to develop its own brand of smartphone or headset, instead going the platform-agnostic route that means Sumerian can integrate with a number of existing devices on the market. Sumerian is built using open web standards and can support Apple’s ARKit and Android ARCore, so an app built in Sumerian can run on a range of devices.

As part of Amazon Web Services, Sumerian is priced according to the usage-based model already used by web services instead of using a subscription, and connects to other Amazon Web Services services.

PCMag managed to get a demo of Sumerian, with Rob Marvin being shown a tour of the drag-and-drop app editor, 3D object library, Visual State Machine for scripting automated scenes as well as getting a look at the process of creating AI ‘hosts’, which users can have conversations with from within these VR experiences.

Marco Argenti, a VP of AR/VR, but also the AWS Mobile, Serverless Computing, and IoT divisions spoke about the factors influencing Amazon’s decision to dive into AR and VR development, which involved the emergence of a strong smartphone VR/AR market and untapped potential of the business-to-business VR market: “These signals were strong enough for us to actually start getting into the process of designing Sumerian. In the classic Amazon way, we started working backward from customer use cases and then eventually funding a development team to build the product,” Argenti explained.

Further news on Sumerian and Amazon’s other VR and AR projects will continue to be covered here on VRFocus.

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Easily Build VR/AR Applications With Amazon Sumerian

Last year online retail giant Amazon launched its first foray into videogame development with its Lumberyard game engine, adding and improving support for virtual reality (VR) content creation in the following months. Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a new piece of online software that creators can use for their VR and augmented reality (AR) projects called Amazon Sumerian.

Amazon Sumerian is a purely online web-based development engine that features no software to install or upfront costs –  customers pay only for the storage used for 3D assets and the volume of traffic generated to access the virtual scenes they create.

Amazon Sumerian-05-ImportAsset-1

Users simply log into the AWS Management Console to begin building VR and AR apps using a drag and drop system. 3D objects (e.g. furniture, buildings, and natural objects) and characters can be place into into “scenes” (e.g. rooms, office environments, and landscapes). Developers can choose from Amazon Sumerian’s library of pre-built objects, download and import objects from third-party asset stores such as Sketchfab or Turbosquid, or create and import their own objects. Amazon Sumerian also includes templates with pre-populated scenes.

The software can also handle animation as well, so that developers are able to create 3D characters that can guide users through a scene by narrating scripts or answering questions. Amazon Sumerian is integrated with Amazon Lex and Amazon Polly, which provide automatic speech recognition (ASR), natural language understanding (NLU), and text-to-speech capabilities.

Any apps created in Amazon Sumerian will run in any browser that supports WebGL or WebVR graphics rendering, including Google Daydream, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and iOS mobile devices.

“Customers across industries see the potential of VR and AR technologies for a wide range of uses—from educating and training employees to creating new customer experiences. But, customers are daunted and overwhelmed by the up-front investment in specialized skills and tools required to even get started building a VR or AR application,” said Marco Argenti, Vice President, Technology, AWS in a statement. “With Amazon Sumerian, it is now possible for any developer to create a realistic, interactive VR or AR application in a few hours.”

Additionally, if an app needs a map embedded, Amazon Sumerian supports location platform Mapbox. “We now bring Mapbox location services to Amazon Sumerian, enabling users to integrate 3D maps and surfaces into their AR and VR applications and bring location-based experiences to life,” said Alex Barth, VP of Business Development, Mapbox. “For instance, we integrated Mapbox’s points of interest and global terrain maps with Amazon Sumerian so data is delivered and rendered in real-time.”

VRFocus will continue its coverage of AWS and the new Amazon Sumerian software, reporting back with further updates.

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Amazon’s New ‘Sumerian’ Tool Aims to Make Developing Web-based VR Apps Easier

Amazon today announced a new developer tool at its annual AWS re:Invent that aims to make creating web-based applications for VR/AR and traditional monitors even easier. Called Sumerian, the tool is capable of publishing 3D content to any browser that supports WebGL or WebVR graphics rendering, including Daydream, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and iOS mobile devices.

Update (11/27/17): The list of WebVR-supported browsers has been updated to include stable versions of both Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

Amazon says Sumerian editor lets developers build “realistic virtual environments, populate them with 3D objects and animated characters, and script how they interact with each other and the application’s users.”

The tool is entirely web-based which, just like the VR/AR applications it can generate, means there’s no extra software to install. WebVR is integrated into major browsers including Chrome for Android, Oculus Carmel, Samsung Internet, Opera developer version, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge.

sample scene using Sumerian, image courtesy Amazon

Sumerian doesn’t require any coding skills to speak of, and includes a drag-and-drop interfaces along with a visual scripting tool to build the logic that controls how the objects and characters in the scenes behave and respond to actions.

Amazon is providing a library of pre-built scenes and objects, along with the ability to create your own objects, or download and import objects from 3D repositories such as Sketchfab or Turbosquid. Sumerian scenes are (of course) hosted on the company’s AWS cloud.

To help attract developers, Amazon is eliminating any upfront costs, although devs will still need to pay for the storage used for 3D assets and the volume of traffic generated to access the virtual scenes they create.

Interestingly, the company is also chumming the waters by integrating Sumerian with some its AI infrastructures—Amazon Lex and Amazon Polly—both of which will provide automatic speech recognition, natural language understanding, and text-to-speech capabilities to applications, meaning VR characters could respond to queries and interact naturally to some degree.

“Customers across industries see the potential of VR and AR technologies for a wide range of uses—from educating and training employees to creating new customer experiences. But, customers are daunted and overwhelmed by the up-front investment in specialized skills and tools required to even get started building a VR or AR application,” said Marco Argenti, Vice President, Technology, AWS. “With Amazon Sumerian, it is now possible for any developer to create a realistic, interactive VR or AR application in a few hours.”

Amazon Sumerian is now available for preview. You can also check out a sample scene here.

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