Category: HoloLens

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Scope AR’s WorkLink Platform Brings Smart Instructions to HoloLens

During 2016 augmented reality (AR) smart instruction and live support video calling solution specialist, Scope AR raised $2 million USD towards its plans for industrial AR applications. Today, the company has revealed the fruit of that work by announcing that its mixed reality (MR) content authoring platform, WorkLink, now supports Microsoft HoloLens.

With the combination of WorkLink and HoloLens businesses can now create interactive, holographic training content for staff. As HoloLens is hands-free users can for example repair a piece of equipment, or assemble machinery whilst visually being taught at the same time.

“Through its built-in depth camera and sophisticated tracking technology, HoloLens is one of the best wearable devices for hands-free use of the MR applications so many organizations are seeking,” said Scott Montgomerie, CEO of Scope AR in a statement. “With WorkLink now supporting the device, enterprises finally have a simple and easy way to digitize visual instructions at scale — empowering all workers to become their own expert — and begin to realize the full potential of MR.”

WorkLink - HoloLens screencap

WorkLink has been designed so that even non-technical HoloLens users can build step-by-step content, whether its for training, repairs, manufacturing or any other applications. Speaking to VRFocus on the subject Scope AR co-founder Graham Melley said: “We’ve seen interest from many places, one of challenges is to determine how much we should maybe focus in and how much we should keep a broad application. The problems that we’ve solved thus far through lessons that we’ve learned and the feedback we’re getting from our current clients, we’re still not at the point where we’re having to be extremely customised to the cliental we’re working with. Just by giving them an open template to be able to build instructions and bring in whatever content they have, it’s really just a powerful open template anybody can use it for anything, and it’s extremely rare that we’ve shown it to someone and they don’t see an application for what they do.”

The software is also fully platform agnostic, enabling cross-platform publishing on Android, iOS and Windows simultaneously, depending on which device a business wants to use. And while HoloLens is the main focus today Acope AR has been looking at as many headsets as possible.

We’ve done some implementation with Meta, we’ve got a long history with the ODG’s, pretty much anything that’s available, we’ll even try out monocular devices, and between the two products that we have RemoteAR and WorkLink, we see different applications for hardware all over the place. So as much as we deeply love the HoloLens, we’re not about telling people what hardware they like and what hardware they need,” said Melley. “And you can safely assume we’ll be announcing more device support in the next 6 to 12 months.”

“Enterprise-class instructional content is one of the most impactful use cases across MR today. By providing a platform for anyone to customize their content easily for MR integration, Scope AR is making it easy for users to take advantage of the benefits of mixed reality using Microsoft HoloLens,” said Brandon Bray from Microsoft.

With today’s announcement current subscribers to WorkLink can update their projects to take advantage of HoloLens if they so wish as they all have access to support.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Scope AR, reporting back with its latest progress.

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Microsoft: “Holiday 2017 is Going to be Phenomenal”, E3 to See More Mixed Reality Announcements

Microsoft Technical Fellow and chief inventor of HoloLens, Alex Kipman, took the stage today at Microsoft Build 2017 to show off a number of upcoming mixed reality hardware and software streaming out of the company and its partners. Among the announcements—including pre-orders of Windows Holographic Headsets from Acer and HP and a new VR hand controller—was a teaser for more to come at E3 in June.

“Holiday 2017 is going to be phenomenal,” said Kipman. “We have a product lineup that customers really want. I hope you tune in to E3 to learn more about Windows Mixed Reality content story for this holiday.”

Many of the headsets taking part in the Windows Holographic program including Asus, Dell, 3Glasses and Lenovo have yet to receive a street date. There’s also no telling what bundle deals Microsoft will push to entice newcomers to their Universal Windows Platform-flavor of virtual interactions.

image captured by Road to VR

As it is, HP and Acer’s headsets are set to arrive to developers in August, which according to Kipman will be the exact same models shipping to consumers later in 2017.

The post Microsoft: “Holiday 2017 is Going to be Phenomenal”, E3 to See More Mixed Reality Announcements appeared first on Road to VR.

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An In-depth Look at Microsoft’s HoloLens & Mixed Reality Ecosystem

Brandon-BrayThe HoloLens is the most impressive augmented reality headset on the market today, and their developer kit is already being deployed into industries ranging from architecture, engineering, design, sales, medicine, and education. Microsoft is taking a holistic approach with Windows Mixed Reality being baked into Windows 10, meaning that developers can create a single application that can run on the HoloLens, on one of their partner VR headsets, on a Surface tablet, or as a desktop app. At Microsoft’s Build conference today, the company is announcing a new OEM VR partner with HP as well as inside-out, six degree-of-freedom input controllers for VR headsets made by Microsoft partners like Acer.

LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST

Greg-SullivanI had a chance to sit down for an hour with two representatives from Microsoft to talk about the latest HoloLens updates, the VR headsets coming from their partners, as well their overall Mixed Reality strategy. Brandon Bray leads the Mixed Reality developer ecosystem, and Greg Sullivan is on the marketing team for the Windows & Devices Group. We cover a lot of the high-level mixed reality strategies as well as the low-level details for developers, as well as a wide range of topics from AI integrations with Microsoft Cognitive Services to the technical details of their new motion-tracked controllers.

Microsoft has leapfrogged the augmented reality competition with the combination of having the best AR headset with the HoloLens, a healthy ecosystem of enterprise developers, a suite of AI-driven cognitive service APIs, and a forward-looking Mixed Reality strategy (which the company uses to describe both VR and AR headsets). They have impeccable timing with taking a leap of faith to solve a lot of really hard problems in order to have created the HoloLens in the first place.

Bray admits that there’s still a lot of remaining problems to be solved with the limited field of view, but that there was a tradeoff for being able to even create a battery-driven, tetherless, holographic computing platform that you can wear on your head that can do inside-out positional tracking.

SEE ALSO
HoloLens Inside-out Tracking Is Game Changing for AR & VR, and No One Is Talking about It

The HoloLens developer kits are priced at $3,000, and so they’re targeting enterprise use-cases for now. But their VR strategy seems to be aiming for the bottom to low-end portion of the market with their $400 price point for an Acer VR headset bundled with motion-tracked controllers. I had a chance to have some hands-on time with the Acer VR headset, and I was not impressed with the motion-to-photon latency of the LCD screen, poor quality optics, build quality, or user experience of putting the headset on.

These tradeoffs in comfort were made in order to bring the price down, but the overall experience feels like it’s a small step up from a Daydream, but perhaps on par with the GearVR or possibly even worse. The high resolution of the Acer VR headset makes it one of the best VR HMDs to read text in and the inside-out tracking works pretty well with occasional judder. But the LCD screen is not a blur-free low persistence screen that seasoned VR veterans have grown used to, and so the resulting Rift DK1-era blurring when turning your head makes it feel worse than a Gear VR. But as long as you’re not quickly moving your head around, then you’ll minimize the motion sickness triggers.

The 6 DOF motion controllers are tracked inside-out and Bray said that they rely upon a sensor fusion combination of having a direct line of sight with the front-facing cameras on the VR headset, IMU sensors, and inverse kinematic probabilities. There were not any prototypes available for testing, and so I don’t have any direct experience with how they actually work. But I do have some concerns with their approach based upon my experiences with other line-of-sight controllers such as the Leap Motion. With the Leap Motion, you have to hold your hands up so that they can be seen by the cameras on the HMD, which will likely require developers to specifically design applications that optimize for this constraint.

This limitation of the input controllers may mean that it could limit existing room-scale Vive and Rift VR experiences from being easily ported. If existing Vive or Rift applications aren’t a good experience on these lower-end VR HMDs, then there’s going to be a huge gap of content to drive consumer adoption. If this lower price point is going to attract more consumer-grade users, then they’re going to need content. If custom entertainment content is need, then I doubt that the Microsoft enterprise developers are going to generate a lot of compelling and entertaining content.

But it could be that Microsoft isn’t concerned about having a library of entertainment for regular consumers of these VR headsets, and maybe they’re more interested in creating data visualization and enterprise applications. But if that was the case, then why not create something on par with the Vive and charge enterprise prices? Most of the mobile VR content designed for a 3 DOF controller hasn’t been nearly as compelling as the full room-scale and 6 DOF experience provided by the Rift and Vive. These Microsoft VR headsets look to be in yet another category of quality & performance that’s slightly better than mobile, but a lot worse than the best high-end systems.

If Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets are going to go anywhere, then there’s going to need to be content that’s compelling and drives adoption. Will these VR systems meet the needs of whatever Microsoft has decided is their target market? If it does, then all of this discussion is moot. But if not, then we’ll have another platform that could creature the developer ecosystem and is left without a critical mass of compelling content.

SEE ALSO
Microsoft Shows Windows in VR, Gives Acer VR Headset to Vision Summit Audience

Overall, I’m really impressed with Microsoft’s holistic approach to mixed reality. The HoloLens is the market leader for head-mounted AR that’s actually being deployed into enterprise. They are positioned to really own the enterprise and professional AR market as they create more integrations between Windows Mixed Reality, their cloud hosting, and AI-driven cognitive services.

There’s a lot of long-term promise in tetherless VR with inside-out tracking, but the early Acer VR prototypes are disappointing and risk fracturing the VR ecosystem in potentially needing specially designed experiences in order to really use the strengths of the platform.

Here’s a number of Twitter threads with more thoughts and impressions from Microsoft Build so far:

Live tweets of first day keynote of Microsoft Build Conference

Thread with highlights from the HoloLens YouTube channel

Twitter Thread of Hands-On Impressions from Acer headset

 

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The post An In-depth Look at Microsoft’s HoloLens & Mixed Reality Ecosystem appeared first on Road to VR.

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Microsoft: Mixed Reality Will Revolutionize Work Away From The Desk

Microsoft: Mixed Reality Will Revolutionize Work Away From The Desk

While virtual reality looks to break into the mainstream within the next few years, Microsoft is playing the long game with its mixed reality device, HoloLens, which is much further away from reaching the consumer market. When it does get here, though, Microsoft’s executive vice president of the Windows and devices group Terry Myerson expects it to do big things for work away from the desk.

Myerson spoke a little about virtual and mixed realities ahead of Microsoft’s Build developer conference in Seattle this week, which UploadVR will be attending. Speaking to Time, Myerson spoke a little about his vision for where mixed reality will go in the near future, saying that he expected it to “revolutionize” both videogames and other entertainment.

“I think it will revolutionize so many things that are done away from desks,” Myerson continued. “I don’t think it’s going to replace the work you do at your desk, but when people are away from their desk, when their hands are free.”

Myserson gave an example of looking out of his office a few weeks ago to see someone spray painting a sign alerting pedestrians to a pipe. “And I remember thinking that’s so lame; they should be able to see a virtual map of where the pipe is,” he said. “If we can get that presence right, I think it’s just going to revolutionize our lives, allow us to connect when we’re apart.”

You can expect to see Myerson on stage for Build’s opening keynote later today. Exactly what the company has in store for VR and MR at the show remains unclear, though we’re hoping for an update on the Windows 10 VR headsets Microsoft is building with partners, with Myerson himself introduced late last year.

Those devices are expected to be hitting this holiday season and will support inside-out tracking. Just how well Microsoft delivers on its promise will be one of the biggest stories of VR in 2017.

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Microsoft Build 2017 Sessions Revealed

For virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) tech enthusiasts and developers this week is quite a big one. Starting today and finishing Wednesday is the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (2017) featuring the latest immersive news and insights from the company. Wednesday also sees the start of Microsoft Build 2017, set to include even more of the very latest tech, and today the sessions have now been unveiled.

As VRFocus readers may expect, Microsoft Build 2017 will be far more focused on MR and AR than VR, with sessions revolving around HoloLens and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

Naturally being Microsoft’s major conference the sessions cover the massive swath of the company’s interests so VRFocus has whittled all of them down to just the immersive tech side.

Microsoft Build 2017 takes place in Seattle, Washington, from 10th – 12th May 2017 at the Washington State Convention Center. To checkout all the talks taking place follow this link. For any further updates, keep reading VRFocus. 

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University of Strathclyde’s AFRC and AMRC Unveil the Construction Industries AR Future

Almost every enterprise sector has or is experimenting with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology. And the construction industry is no different, looking to use immersive devices to aid training, learning, on site inspections and much more. Today the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC) and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing (AMRC) in Sheffield, have unveiled a demo that aims to help contractors to visualise projects from the earliest stages.

The two research centres worked with Glasgow-based design visualisation company Soluis Group and modular building designer and manufacturer Carbon Dynamic to create the prototype which uses Microsoft HoloLens to show a 3D rendering of the plumbing and wiring behind a plasterboard wall. The system can also be used to examine segments of the wall to ensure there are no insulation gaps before being sent to a construction site.

AFRC 3

Speaking about the project, David Grant, partnership development leader at the AFRC, said in a statement: “This new technology has a role to play before, during and after construction of both domestic and commercial properties.

“Prior to work commencing on site, those involved in a construction project will be able to accurately visualise and walk through a building before the foundations are even dug, this will help in identifying any potential issues before they occur. It could also help during a build as contractors will be able to accurately see what’s behind walls and under floors, potentially leading to improved health and safety on sites as all guess work could be eliminated.  Post construction it will help with remedial and retrofitting work – even years down the line – as all of the information relating to a building – from where electricity cables and pipe work are installed to the guarantees and instruction manuals for boilers, light fittings and showers will be accessible using this technology.”

“Projects like this can inspire hearts and minds in the construction sector to accelerate their adoption of new technologies – the potential for AR and VR in the industry is vast,” Grant continued. “Of course, this is just the first phase; demonstrating what could be achieved if the right platform was developed as a standard for the industry – the tools still need to be created.

“What we have done is prove that the technology works and, with the necessary skills, the right kind of software applications can be developed. While there are bespoke programmes already available, there isn’t a platform everyone can use to push and pull information from AR and VR devices. This is the first step forward in addressing that gap.”

While Chris Freeman, technical lead for augmented reality, at the AMRC with Boeing, added: “The AFRC was integral in laying the groundwork for the demonstrator, with thorough research and identifying the business drivers for introducing AR and VR capabilities. We’re hoping to do more in this area with our industrial partners, as more companies in the construction sector begin to realise the benefits these technologies can bring.”

This is still in its early stages but there are plenty of examples of VR and AR use being trialed. In March VRFocus reported on ProBility and GlobalSim launching a software library of virtual heavy equipment models for training. Or last year for example where Suffolk Construction had a VR simulator created for the traditional act of digging a shovel into the ground on a new building project.

For the latest use of VR and AR around the world, keep reading VRFocus.

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Scopis: Berliner Unternehmen bringt die HoloLens in die Chirurgie

Dass Augmented Reality auch für die Industrie und die Medizin extrem spannend ist, sollte kein Geheimnis sein. Durch die Einblendung von zusätzlichen Inhalten kann dem Nutzer beispielsweise ein Vorgang  erklärt werden, ohne dass eine helfende Person anwesend sein muss. Außerdem können beispielsweise Vorgänge virtuell trainiert werden, die später in der Realität wiederholt werden.

Scopis – Können Mixed Reality Brillen die Chirurgie bereichern?

Das Berliner Unternehmen Scopis will die HoloLens nicht dazu nutzen, eine Remote-Hilfe anzubieten oder Abläufe zu trainieren, sondern das Unternehmen möchte die Genauigkeit bei chirurgischen Eingriffen verbessern. Hierzu wird dem Chirurgen eine Stelle am Patienten markiert, die er zuvor am digitalen Skelet des Patienten festgelegt hat. Scopis bezeichnet sich selbst als Plattform und dementsprechend bietet das System auch noch weitere Feature wie das Einblenden von Daten, Röntgenbildern und Ähnlichem. Zudem ist auch eine kontaktlose Interaktion mit den Inhalten möglich, was im Operationssaal durchaus von Vorteil sein kann.

Aktuell sollen bereits 10.000 Operationen mit Scopis durchgeführt worden sein und die Plattform hat definitiv das Potential, zu einem wichtigen Instrument in der Medizin zu werden. Besonders bei sehr kritischen Operationen, bei denen jeder Bruchteil eines Millimeters zählen kann, könnte die HoloLens in der Zukunft auch Leben retten.

(Quelle: Upload VR, Scopis)

Der Beitrag Scopis: Berliner Unternehmen bringt die HoloLens in die Chirurgie zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Berlin Company Is Using AR With HoloLens To Improve Surgical Procedures

Berlin Company Is Using AR With HoloLens To Improve Surgical Procedures

VR and AR technologies are poised to impact many industries beyond gaming and entertainment and there are scatterings of examples already out in the wild. Educational platforms are immersing users into the human physiology with VR and now we have a new example of AR being used in a similarly invasive manner.

Scopis, a company in Berlin that specializes in surgical navigation and medical augmented/mixed technology, has announced a new platform that will be used to increase the precision of surgeons.

The Holographic Navigation Platform integrates the HoloLens device into Scopis’ image guidance navigation system, which projects on overlay directly onto the patient to assist the surgeon with spine surgery. Scopis adds additional 3D tracking to the overlay to improve the accuracy as well.

“Scopis’ holographic solution has the potential to make spine surgery more effective, safe, and precise,” says Chief of the Spinal Surgery Clinic at Vivantes Humboldt Hospital Professor Christian Woiciechowsky in the press release for the announcement. “Integrating mixed-reality tools into surgery is a huge technological advancement toward enhancing a surgeon’s vision and may provide greater benefits to patients.”

The use of HoloLens blows the surgical workflow wide open, not only guiding them in the work with an overlay but also allowing them to have other visuals like virtual monitors in view while not taking their eyes off the patient.

“Scopis’ Holographic Navigation Platform is a universal solution that offers specific advantages for spinal surgeries and can also be applied in the many other areas where the highest levels of precision and speed are critical. In neurosurgery, for example, brain tumors could be located faster and with higher accuracy,” said Bartosz Kosmecki, CEO and Founder of Scopis. “The development of this holographic platform further highlights Scopis’ leading role in medical mixed and augmented reality.”

At the time the above video was published, over 10,000 surgeries have been successfully completed using Scopis technology and the Holographic Navigation Platform has a lot of potential for use beyond spinal surgery. Doctors across other specialties and disciplines can easily benefit from having such a tool at their exposure, keeping a great deal of information in view while not leaving or turning away from surgical workspaces. Just like how elevator technicians are using AR to improve safety and workflow, this platform’s benefits are already being recognized in other fields.

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Scopis Announces Holographic Navigation Platform Using HoloLens for Open and Minimally-Invasive Spine Surgery

Specialist surgical navigation and medical augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) technology company Scopis has announced the Holographic Navigation Platform, designed to offer greater precision and speed to surgeons using Microsoft’s HoloLens headset.

Whilst wearing HoloLens, surgeons use Scopis Holographic Navigation Platform to see the planned positioning of pedicle screws, overlaid exactly onto the patient, creating the MR experience. The system allows the surgeon to find the screws’ planned positions faster and to align surgical instruments interactively with the holographic visualization.

“Scopis’ holographic solution has the potential to make spine surgery more effective, safe, and precise,” said Professor Christian Woiciechowsky, Chief of the Spinal Surgery Clinic at Vivantes Humboldt Hospital in Berlin in a statement. “Integrating mixed-reality tools into surgery is a huge technological advancement toward enhancing a surgeon’s vision and may provide greater benefits to patients.”

Scopis Holographic Navigation Platform_1

Scopis’ technology uses additional 3-D position tracking to improve the MR experience. Additionally, the platform enables surgeons to place virtual monitors into their visual field near the patient, so their eyes remain on the operative field.

Another benefit of the Holographic Navigation Platform is the reduction of radiation exposure from fluoroscopy devices on patients and medical professionals, used to determine the optimal position for screw placement during surgery, as well as shortening surgery times.

“Scopis’ Holographic Navigation Platform is a universal solution that offers specific advantages for spinal surgeries and can also be applied in the many other areas where the highest levels of precision and speed are critical. In neurosurgery, for example, brain tumors could be located faster and with higher accuracy,” said Bartosz Kosmecki, CEO and Founder of Scopis. “The development of this holographic platform further highlights Scopis’ leading role in medical mixed and augmented reality.”

For the latest advancements of MR/AR and VR technology in medicine, keep reading VRFocus.

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Hololens Veteran Joins DAQRI As New Vice President Of Worldwide Sales

We’ve talked about DAQRI on VRFocus a few times in the last twelve months. The Los Angeles based firm which focuses on augmented reality (AR) technologies has been quietly putting together a number of deals/partnerships (such as working with Touch Surgery and Trimble), technology (Software Defined Light) and product releases. Notably their DAQRI Smart Helmet which is being used in a variety of areas of industry.

It may not seen you hear much about them now, but it’s highly likely you’ll hear a lot more in the future.The company has just announced the latest person to join their senior management team, Chris Kaufield, who joins DAQRI as the new Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and will be tasked with defining a sales strategy for the firm. Notably, Kaufield – an technology industry veteran of over twenty years – previously served in a similar role at Microsoft managing teams working on among other things Microsoft’s HoloLens headmounted display (HMD)

“Augmented Reality is having a huge impact around the world and the pace of growth is increasing every single day,” said DAQRI Founder and CEO Brian Mullins. “DAQRI’s leadership of the industry requires us to continuously innovate with a sharp focus on capturing the most important segments of the market. Chris is a world-class sales leader with a track record of creating sales strategies and building successful teams for new, category defining products and technology. His background is perfectly aligned with our goal to bring AR Everywhere.”

Speaking on his new role Kaufield said: “I’m thrilled to join DAQRI and link the leading AR technology to our clients’ most meaningful initiatives. DAQRI solutions give businesses and their people powerful new ways to solve real problems.”

VRFocus will bring you more news as we get it on DAQRI as it continues to grow