Category: Virtual Reality

Mercedes-Benz is joining the metaverse. Or at least its assembly facilities are.

By Rebecca Bellan

The automaker is one of Nvidia’s latest customers to use Omniverse Enterprise, a software platform used to build and operate metaverse applications. Nvidia said Tuesday ahead of the official kickoff of CES 2023 that Mercedes will use Omniverse to design, plan and optimize its factories. Specifically, Mercedes is preparing to manufacture its new electric vehicle platform at its plant in Rastatt, Germany.

Using Omniverse, the automaker is able to build a digital twin of the factory and simulate new production processes without disrupting existing vehicle production. Nvidia says having a virtual workflow will let Mercedes quickly react to supply chain disruptions and reconfigure the assembly line as needed.

Danny Shapiro, Nvidia’s VP of automotive, told TechCrunch that Mercedes has already been working with Nvidia to test out autonomous vehicle technology in simulation.

“Now what they’re talking about is using our Omniverse technology, bringing that down to the production level, and creating a digital twin of the entire factory,” said Shapiro. “So modeling all the vehicles going through the assembly, all the robots, all the factory workers, and being able to design and plan the production and the assembly plant before it is actually live. And so this is helping them streamline, moving over from an existing A class production into a new generation vehicle.”

A complete factory simulation could help automakers assess potential bottlenecks, create more ergonomic working conditions or determine where a robot might fail to complete a task before the facility actually starts production. Shapiro said Mercedes plans to scale this strategy to its factories globally in the future.

Continue reading… “Mercedes to use Nvidia’s digital twin tech to modernize its factories”

ByDisha Chopra

Diver X, a Japanese VR startup that pitched HalfDrive VR Headsets earlier this year, has launched a new Kickstarter campaign for a pair of Diver X VR haptic gloves that contain flexing and compressing membranes to mimic touch sensations. 

The HalfDrive Kickstarter fame saw the light in January as the campaign secured enough cash to be fully funded. However, the Diver X team decided against it and returned the funds as the device that clearly took inspiration from Sword Art Online failed the scalability test. 

Now, the company is back with another Kickstarter campaign with ContactGlove, a pair of Diver X VR haptic gloves that tracks fingers and positions with SteamVR and offers input emulation via buttons. 

Continue reading… “Diver X, the Startup Behind HalfDrive Headsets, Launches VR Haptic Gloves”

By Emily Henderson, B.Sc.

Researchers have used virtual reality games, eye tracking and machine learning to show that differences in eye movements can be used to detect ADHD, potentially providing a tool for more precise diagnosis of attention deficits. Their approach could also be used as the basis for an ADHD therapy, and with some modifications, to assess other conditions, such as autism.

ADHD is a common attention disorder that affects around six percent of the world’s children. Despite decades of searching for objective markers, ADHD diagnosis is still based on questionnaires, interviews and subjective observation. The results can be ambiguous, and standard behavioral tests don’t reveal how children manage everyday situations. Recently, a team consisting of researchers from Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, and Åbo Akademi University developed a virtual reality game called EPELI that can be used to assess ADHD symptoms in children by simulating situations from everyday life.

Now, the team tracked the eye movements of children in a virtual reality game and used machine learning to look for differences in children with ADHD. The new study involved 37 children diagnosed with ADHD and 36 children in a control group. The children played EPELI and a second game, Shoot the Target, in which the player is instructed to locate objects in the environment and “shoot” them by looking at them.

Continue reading… “Virtual reality games, eye tracking and machine learning can be used to detect ADHD”

ST Engineering Antycip drives Renault with a VR solution for its teams in India, South Korea and Brazil.

ST Engineering Antycip has partnered with Renault Group to design and integrate a powerful virtual reality suite for one of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers.

Building on the companies’ previous collaborations in the VR world, and after a competitive tender process, ST Engineering Antycip was selected by Renault to develop a collaborative, 4K, powerwall-based solution which could be installed at Renault’s facilities in South Korea, India and Brazil.

“Renault France contacted ST Engineering Antycip as they are a historical client of ours in the automotive industry,” explained Johan Besnainou, ST Engineering Antycip’s regional director for France and Spain, recalling the genesis of the project. “We got involved in the request for a quotation and won the tender thanks to our VR expertise, experience of working to budgets and track record of delivering high-performance AV equipment, as well as our international network of strong local partners, including in South Korea, India and Brazil.”

The trio of installations, in Busan (South Korea), Chennai (India) and São José dos Pinhais (Brazil), utilize three identical systems comprising one powerwall, one high-end 5×2.5-meter screen and one plinth-mounted Christie 4K10-HS laser projector(opens in new tab). A PC cluster, monitor, desk, cabling, 5.1 audio system and wireless presentation hardware (Barco ClickShare) complete the solution, which was entirely sourced, designed and implemented by ST Engineering Antycip.

Continue reading… “This Virtual Reality Suite Enables Carmakers in Three Cities to Collaborate”

How would you like to have a job interview conducted in virtual reality by a computer?

By Elizabeth Hotson

Going for a job interview is the stuff of nightmares for many people, while for others it is a chance to shine.

Either way you are typically still interviewed by other human beings, either after walking into a scary office with one or more bosses sitting behind a desk, or via an equally nerve-wracking Zoom call.

Yet thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) technology, you may soon be interviewed for that job you really want… by a computer.

Earlier this year students at Sandwell College in West Bromwich put on VR headsets to do some mock interviews.

Their avatars – cartoon-like, 3D representations of themselves – were put through their paces by another talking avatar representing the AI software system.

Continue reading… “Your next job interview could take place in virtual reality”

A glimpse into “Real-time immersive latent space.”

By Katie Wickens

A while ago I spotted someone working on real time AI image generation in VR and I had to bring it to your attention because frankly, I cannot express how majestic it is to watch AI-modulated AR shifting the world before us into glorious, emergent dreamscapes. 

Applying AI to augmented or virtual reality isn’t a novel concept, but there have been certain limitations in applying it—computing power being one of the major barriers to its practical usage. Stable Diffusion image generation software, however, is a boiled-down algorithm for use on consumer-level hardware and has been released on a Creative ML OpenRAIL-M licence. That means not only can developers use the tech to create and launch programs without renting huge amounts of server silicon, but they’re also free to profit from their creations.

I was awoken in the middle of the night to conceptualize this projectScottie Fox – Stable Diffusion VR dev

ScottieFoxTTV(opens in new tab) is one creator who’s been showing off their work with the algorithm in VR on twitter. “I was awoken in the middle of the night to conceptualize this project,” he says. As a creator myself, I understand that the Muses enjoy striking at ungodly hours.

What they brought to him was an amalgamation of Stable Diffusion VR and TouchDesigner app-building engine, the results of which he refers to as “Real-time immersive latent space.” That might sound like some hippie nonsense to some, but latent space is a concept fascinating the world right about now. 

Continue reading… “Stable Diffusion VR is a startling vision of the future of gaming”

Goal is to create virtual, immersive environments that train Guardians and rapidly develop systems

By Courtney Albon

WASHINGTON — Last fall, the U.S. Space Force gave defense companies an unprecedented look at its initial plan to make missile warning satellites more resilient against potential threats from China.

The business fair was unique in a few ways. It offered industry a deeper understanding of the challenges the service expects to face over the next few decades as adversaries advance space and missile technology and test on-orbit weapons. It also paired that analysis with a roadmap of the capabilities the Space Force thinks it needs to protect against these growing threats — work the service doesn’t typically reveal until much later in the acquisition process.

Perhaps the most significant feature of that October 2021 meeting was that the models it shared with industry to show its analysis of the space environment and the counter-space threats were all digital.

Speaking at the Air and Space Force Conference in National Harbor, Md., last month, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond said the meeting and those models were a first step toward creating what the service calls a “digital thread,” which is essentially a virtual record of a product that continues throughout its lifecycle.

The idea, he said, is for programs to have that thread from the beginning, making it easier to define capability gaps, build a system, test it, inject into a simulated training environment and operate it over time.

“If we do this right, we can take everything from force design to requirements . . . to acquiring the capabilities and testing the capabilities and training our Guardians on those systems — all using the same digital thread,” Raymond said Sept. 20. “That’s nirvana. We’re not close to that. But we’ve taken a good step. We’ve done the digital design, we’re figuring out what that digital requirements process is, and I think it’s going to pay significant dividends for us as we move forward.”

While the thread is central to the Space Force’s vision to be the world’s first fully digital military branch, it’s only one piece. Last May, the service released a vision document that laid out its priorities in this area, which include developing a “digitally fluent” workforce, connecting its field commands in a virtual environment and ensuring that decision-making is informed by data.

Lisa Costa, the Space Force’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, told C4ISRNET in an interview that as the service’s leader on implementing this digital vision, her team is focused on three critical areas: creating virtual, immersive environments to train Guardians and develop systems; working with industry to procure digital infrastructure; and identifying future problem sets and capabilities to inform technology and research investments.

Continue reading… “Space Force’s digital push focuses on ‘Spaceverse’”

By PAUL BARKER

Holograms have previously been mainly restricted to the sci-fi scene, but now that Cisco is introducing them into Webex, they are indeed on the cusp of moving into the real world.

At a recent presentation held at Cisco Toronto’s Innovation Lab, a group of media experienced the Webex Hologram in action, as work on the product continues to the point where there will be a full-fledged launch that delivers what the company describes as “photorealistic, real-time holograms of actual people.”

Aruna Ravichandran, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Webex, said that “with this particular technology, we now have the ability to basically hologram a live person in regardless of where they are located on the planet. It’s not an avatar, you actually see a live person.”

According to the Webex Hologram fact sheet, a presenter can “share both physical content and digital content that allows users to co-create and truly collaborate.

Continue reading… “WEBEX HOLOGRAM: TAKING VIRTUAL MEETINGS TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL”

By Hamish Hector 

Apple’s ready to take us on a wild ride

A new Apple patent hints at how the company could use VR to entertain passengers traveling in an autonomous car — while also helping reduce motion sickness to boot.

The released schematics reveal how a driverless car and a VR headset could work together to keep travelers entertained on their journeys. VR headset wearers could be dropped into a game, or they could invite friends and celebrities to be their virtual travel companions.

On the business side, the patent (first mentioned on PatentlyApple) also showed how users could attend a business meeting while on the move – on the back of a flatbed truck no less. Rather than being confined to a virtual meeting room, you’d be able to look out at passing scenery, so you’d be less likely to become disoriented and motion-sick.

Continue reading… “Forget VR headsets – Apple now has a patent for a VR car”

By Bhoomi Gadhia 

From physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) to neural operators, developers have long sought after the ability to build real-time digital twins with true-to-form rendering, robust visualizations, and synchronization with the physical system in the real world by streaming live sensor data. The latest release of Modulus brings us closer to this reality.

Modulus 22.03, the cutting-edge framework for developing physics-based machine learning models, offers developers key capabilities such as novel physics informed and data-driven AI architectures, and integration into the Omniverse (OV) platform.

This release takes a major step toward building precise simulations and interactive visualization capabilities for engineers and researchers with the Modulus OV extension. This enhancement is bolstered by new AI architectures that can learn from data using neural operators. Additional enhancements to facilitate precise modeling of problems such as turbulence have been added in this latest version of Modulus, as well as features to improve training convergence.

Continue reading… “Building Scientifically Accurate Digital Twins Using Modulus with Omniverse and AI”

Virtual reality is coming to Audi vehicles. On Saturday, the automaker announced it would support Holoride’s in-car VR technology starting this summer.

In June, select Audi models with the company’s MIB 3 infotainment system, including the A4, A6, A8, Q5 and , will ship with the necessary software to sync with Holoride-compatible headsets, with the company planning to support the feature first in Germany, the UK and US before making it available in other markets.

Continue reading… “Holoride’s in-car VR tech arrives in Audi vehicles this summer | Engadget”