AWE EU 2018 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

October 19, 2018

AWE EU 2018 Sees Discussions On Collaboration and Industry Growth

The Augmented World Expo has begun the third annual European conference and expo, which features a press conference containing announcement from major augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) companies and organisations.

The event began with opening remarks from AWE co-founder and CEO Ori Inbar which addressed the growth of the immersive technology industry and the launch of 10 new AWE Nite meet-up chapter organisations in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Berlin, Tokyo and Tel Aviv.

AWE EU 2017 key art

“AWE is the world’s gathering place and showcase for the rapidly maturing XR industry – attracting the leaders, the doers, and the corporations evaluating adoption of XR technology,” said Ori Inbar, founder and CEO of AWE. “The ultimate goal of AWE is to inspire one billion active XR users by the year 2020, and all signs point to this becoming a reality: rapid XR adoption by the Fortune1000, big bets by tech, manufacturing and consumer giants, and record investment in the billions. These growth and collaboration factors, when combined with our news partnerships news, the expansion of our AWE Nites series to 10 cities worldwide, and our open call to the community at large for OARC awareness and involvement – make this year’s AWE EU our most compelling and powerful event yet.”

This was followed by a presentation by Tim Merel of Digi-Capital, which discussed the various opportunities available to immersive technology companies outside their respective geographic regions.

Then a press conference saw major announcements from several companies, including PTC on its industry research, Vuzix about the launch of its Blade smart glasses, RE’FLEKT on its new operating system, Upskill on its early access program for Skylight and Bosche with its AR solution for the automotive industry.

Further information about AWE can be found on the official AWE website. For future coverage on AWE and other VR-related events, keep checking back with VRFocus.

October 18, 2018

Upskill Expand Skylight Early Access Programme

At the beginning of the month, Upskill – the United States-based enterprise software developer that creates augmented reality (AR) solutions with companies such as Accenture and The Boeing Company – revealed an Early Access release for its Skylight Mixed Reality platform on Microsoft HoloLens.

AWE EU Today at Augmented World Expo (AWE) Europe, Upskill followed up that announcement with one about its expansion of the Early Access, previously only available in America, to global customers. As well as confirmed that its version of Skylight AR for mobile will be getting an updated release on an expanded array of mobile devices.

Skylight allows employees easy hands-free access to reference materials to complex information allowing them to visualise what they are doing when out in the workplace, while gesture and gaze controls allow for intuitive interactions.

“As the AR hardware ecosystem matures, enterprises have more options for bringing specialized experiences to their hands-on workforces – some requiring a more immersive digital interaction than others.” Explains Upskill’s CEO and Co-Founder Brian Ballard. “By extending Skylight across the device spectrum – handheld devices, assisted reality smart glasses and mixed reality headsets – we are helping customers future-proof their investments, connecting them with rich AR content through devices that meet their job requirements, at scale and upon request.”

upskill logo “Our customers see augmented reality as the force multiplier that allows them to fully realize the potential of their workforce and digital investments,” said Ballard at the initial release earlier this month. “Skylight for Microsoft HoloLens will serve as the foundation that delivers the latest advances in visualization, cloud computing and artificial intelligence in a mixed reality environment.”

More information can be found at the Upskill website.VRFocus will bring you more stories from AWE EU 2018 as we get them.

October 9, 2018

Theorem Solutions Bringing Engineering Solutions App Digital Realities And ‘Visualization Pipeline’ Tech To AWE EU 2018

While what we would consider to be the ‘main’ events season is now over with the end of this year’s Oculus Connect, there are still a number of events in the pipeline that are set to be of particular interest to those interested in immersive technology.

Digital Realities HoloLens key art One such event is the 2018 European edition of the Augmented World Expo – better known as AWE – which will be taking place at the MOC Exhibition Centre in Germany from October 18th 2018 through to the 19th. There is, no doubt, a large number of announcements to come from European firms involved in what is increasingly being termed “XR”, and we now have confirmation of at least one firm who will be bringing new experiences not just to virtual reality (VR) via the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, but augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) too.

Engineering and manufacturing partner Theorem Solutions – which VRFocus last reported on in January upon the reveal of their unified immersive reality engineering solution app, Digital Realities – will be bringing their range of associated CAD and PLM utilising experiences to AWE EU 2018 along with launching its new ‘Visualization Pipeline’ server technology.

“To complement our Digital Realities experiences we are also launching our Visualization Pipeline technology, which is a server based technology that rapidly processes CAD data into a wide variety of formats for use in 3D Engines – Unity and Unreal, Photorealistic Rendering or AR/MR/VR tools, applications and with lightweight viewers.” Explains the firm in a statement. “Engineering and Manufacturing businesses are increasingly looking into the benefits of using AR, MR and VR to improve processes and collaboration, cut costs and make access to data easier. The Visualization Pipeline is helping to make that possible with a single application.”

Thoerem Solutions - Digital Realities

“Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality is everywhere at the moment and is making its way from the recreational gaming world into the commercial enterprise world. Integrating these innovative technologies into existing engineering and manufacturing workflows opens up new ways of working, and modernises current processes, futureproofing them as technology evolves, and ultimately saves organisations time and money in the long run.”

Attendees to AWE EU 2018 will be able to try out demonstrations of the upgraded Digital Realities experiences across a number of devices. Theorem Solutions will be locatable at stand #109 during the event.

VRFocus will bring you more news on the goings on at AWE as we get it.