Case in point, this year’s Consumer Electronics Show provided a glimpse at whiz-bang technology and gadgets, as well as what might be the first in a whole new generation of premium VR headsets from some big brands as well as upstarts.

However, what everyone and all industries continue to fail to take into account is that none of this technology means anything unless the platforms they run on is ready to take off. Because of this, 2023 shouldn’t be viewed as the year of hardware and gadgets, but instead it’s the year of the platform for these technologies.

What Is Meant by Platform?

Look at it this way, imagine if you took today’s latest iPhone and ran it on the operating system from 2009. Even though the hardware is amazing, its performance would virtually make the user experience meaningless. The same has been the case for AI, and much of the immersive mixed reality technologies that comprise AR/VR.

Enterprise-grade high-quality AR/VR platforms require both performance and scale. However, existing systems such as MS HoloLens and others are severely limited in both aspects. Most enterprises have a rich repository of existing complex 3D CAD/CAM models created over the years, which is a critical part of the digital thread being laid out. These 3D models may vary in their complexity (such as poly count, hierarchy, details, etc.), making it difficult to run on standalone devices, restricted by device limitations. This forces developers to decimate and optimized the models to work on limited resources available on these devices, breaking the digital thread.

Businesses need to know that as these virtual environments become richer and larger, the problem of scalability continues to compound. This cycle is repeated for each of the different hardware platforms, making it difficult for any enterprise to move from experiments and pilots to full-scale deployable solutions, thus stunting the speed of innovation and effectiveness.

The device limitations also severely restrict the capability of existing AR/VR systems to generate and work within most cloud environments, which is essential to collocate and precisely fuse the virtual objects on top of physical objects in the real world with complex surfaces, and varied lighting and environment.

Businesses in 2023 are finally overcoming this significant challenge by leveraging AR/VR platforms that are based on distributed cloud architecture and 3D vision-based AI. Up until 2023 many of these platforms were not cloud-based and relied on datacenter technology on premise – which for years had slowed the process and compute capacity to a point in which the user experience was not ideal for today’s requirements. However, in 2023 these cloud-based platforms now provide the desired performance and scalability to drive innovation in the industry at speed and scale.

Businesses today are experiencing the next wave of technology innovation that will fundamentally alter the way they operate. This transformation is primarily driven by merging of the digital and physical world to create a better, smarter and more efficient way of operating. Immersive technologies such as AR/VR are playing a pivotal role in this transformation. The organizations that take a leadership role will be the ones that not only leverage these technologies, but they will partner with the right technology provider to help scale appropriately without having to stunt technological growth.

Cloud Platforms Enable “Digital Twins”

It is this sort of platform that is finally enabling today’s IT leaders to build the Metaverse – knowledge workers and things being represented by “digital twins” – a virtual world where people, consumers, workers all gather to communicate, collaborate, and share through a virtual presence on any device. This means companies will build immersive virtual spaces, aka metaverses, and it will allow employees to virtually collaborate using their digital twin through chats, emails, video calls and even face-to-face meetings.

Well-known companies like Microsoft, Accenture, and Facebook, which itself is now called Meta, are all paving the way toward this new reality of business with their headsets and hardware, but none of it can truly excel and perform without the right platform working behind the scenes building immersive reality, modeling and simulation technologies that will ultimately power this new metaverse and virtual environments for business and enterprise use.

In 2023, platforms will finally breathe life into these technologies based on the following specifications, all made possible by their cloud-based environments as the engine:

1. Virtual Reality Space Convergence

• Ultra-low Latency High Fidelity Rendering: Low latency is extremely critical to provide an immersive experience in virtual environments. AR/VR partners provide unparalleled realism of environments by leveraging ultra-low latency remote rendering on cloud/on premise in full fidelity and wirelessly streaming the solution to affordable commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices – HMD, Tablet and Desktop.
• High Precision 3D Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Spatial Mapping: Uses high-fidelity remote spatial mapping with high fidelity 3D scene reconstruction, scene segmentation and 3D object recognition using 3D vision and deep learning-based AI with precise fusion of the real and virtual worlds to merge real world and virtual worlds.

2. Communications and Computing Infrastructure

• Cloud computing/edge computing: Industrial enterprises will subscribe to multi-cloud, edge cloud. Depending on different factors like data sensitivity, latency, cost, different parts of the environment need to be run at different clouds/edge in a distributed manner.
• Messaging framework: In the distributed Metaverse there is a need to update the Metaverse at global scale so users can collaborate seamlessly. AR/VR partners have messaging framework updates distributed to the Metaverse at global scale. 

3. Fundamental Common Technology

• Security and privacy: Security and privacy is one of the biggest issues facing today’s world. Since digital twins are an integral part, these environments will have much richer data. The security and privacy in virtual environments cannot be solved by traditional security tools. AR/VR partners have built tools that handle security and privacy related to digital twins.

Technologies like AI, IoT and AR/VR have been hyped for years. But 2023 is the year of the cloud-based platform that finally enables each of these technologies to power business and consumer applications.

The post Why 2023 Will Be the Year of the ‘Platform’ that Powers AI, IoT and AR/VR Technologies appeared first on SiteProNews.

Business owners and department managers today should highly consider AR/VR and immersive mixed reality for training new employees, and to keep existing employees’ skillsets sharp with periodic retraining of newer production tools and resources.

Simply put, the future of almost all learning is going to have some type of virtual component. The Covid-19 pandemic made this clear as both professionals and students reshuffled their work and studies online and even remotely.

There are other benefits as well. Today’s immersive mixed reality technologies are beyond lifelike, so it allows for effective and exact training of many complex skills. VR headsets create an audio-visual experience and can be paired with physical sensors and tools to create an entire body training environment. And while this offers a certain “wow factor”, it also means it can be beneficial for potentially risky training.

For example, the U.S. continues to lead the world in the design and deployment of virtualized modeling and simulation (M&S) technologies for several industries, such as military and defense. These technological innovations have been used to support strategic operations and training of all facets of the military.

It is estimated that unclassified open-source contracts for virtual and augmented simulation training for the U.S. Army alone totaled $2.7 billion in 2019, increased to an estimated $3 billion in 2020, and is expected to rise to more than $19 billion by 2027¹.

And it’s not just a hope and a dream, there are already significant ROI accomplishments for the technology. For example, Lockheed Martin Corp. has been developing how-to manuals that include animations for assembling spacecraft components. This has reduced the time required to interpret assembly instructions by 95%, along with an 85% reduction in overall training time and a more than 40-percent boost in productivity².

The Need for Virtualization

Sure, on the surface these are significantly large investments. However, these expenditures pale in comparison to the traditional training costs as virtualized technologies do not require costs for travel, expensive munitions, fuel, or any other overhead costs typically associated with a standard training program. Furthermore, there are also reduced risks for soldiers and air-personnel in training as they virtually use weapons, operate a variety of vehicles, or practice team, squad, and full unit tactics in a complete range of simulated environments with adaptable scenarios and landscapes.

Virtualized technologies are still not created equal, though. This is important because today, many existing untethered immersive extended reality (XR) systems lack visual realism, precise blending of virtual and real world, scalability and flexibility required for truly immersive multi-user environments. This is primarily due to limited compute capability, battery capacity and very restrictive thermal envelopes of existing standalone XR devices such as HMD, Tablets, Smartphones, and these challenges will persist in the foreseeable future.

Where Virtualization Makes a Difference

These limitations also extend to immersive modeling and simulations environments for training of employees requiring increasingly joint, coalition, distributed, complex, intense, and specific environments to develop necessary training readiness. Optimum XR systems need to support ultra-realistic, high-fidelity visuals; precise fusion of the virtual on real world in a multi-user, multi-platform environment and flexibility of environment rehearsal in variety of employment situations. However, existing immersive operational training environments are very siloed, too slow, too expensive, and not adaptable enough to prepare for modern day manufacturing or design skillsets.

Among the many reasons why this technology is successful, the cloud native XR platform overcomes the limitations of existing untethered immersive systems. It provides an open, interoperable, scalable unified and shared XR infrastructure for ultra-realistic simulations in any industrial setting. It combines the best of gaming technologies/concepts with traditional simulator capabilities by leveraging cloud computing and 3D Artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver a ubiquitous, reconfigurable, on-demand and immersive training system for multi-user environments.

The platform utilizes server-class Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) on cloud/on-premise/edge to achieve high-fidelity rendering of complex 3D content, and real-time alignment and tracking of virtual models/scenes over real-world objects, and support multi-user multi-platform environments.

Other technical breakthroughs include:

• Ultra-low Latency High Fidelity Rendering: Provides unparallel realism of training by leveraging ultra-low latency remote rendering on cloud/on premise in full fidelity and wirelessly streaming the solution to affordable commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices – HMD, Tablet and Desktop.
• High Precision 3D Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Spatial Mapping: Uses high-fidelity remote spatial mapping with high fidelity 3D scene reconstruction, scene segmentation and 3D object recognition using 3D vision and deep learning-based AI with precise fusion of the real and virtual worlds to create advance visualization and sophisticated picture of battlespace environments.
• Cloud-based agile development, deployment, and operations (DevSecOps): Uses Kubernetes for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI-CD) and auto-scaling in a modern private/public/edge/hybrid cloud ensuring resource optimization and sharing.

The average U.S. company spends over $1,000 on training per employee each year – costs that can significantly add up over time. Immersive mixed reality can help cut costs and reduce overall overhead expenses to preserve the bottom line over time, despite the obvious initial investment.

Business owners and managers in virtually every industry with a manufacturing operation today are realizing the importance of gaining a competitive advantage by implementing these cutting-edge technologies and practices. The innovative nature alone will help boost employee recruitment and retention.

The post How Manufacturers Can Leverage Virtualization In Training Programs appeared first on SiteProNews.

All these technologies have specific differences, but they’re also today now working together in advanced three-dimensional (3D) applications and environments, all for the benefit of these companies and their customers.

Immersive Mixed Reality Uses

With virtual reality, a user wears a headset that fully delves into a new world or environment, some that even mimic the real world. The user is given both a visual and audible experience that is meant to replicate a real-world setting in a manufactured environment.

Augmented reality is similar in concept, but it also displays digital content in the real world. Imagine an automotive manufacturer whereby an engineer holds up an iPad in front of a car being designed to see virtual specs of a vehicle’s design layout or various engine spec options.

Where Immersive Mixed Reality Falls Short for Enterprises

The challenge is that these technologies require heavy doses of data, the ability to process vast amounts of data at impeccable speeds, and the ability to scale projects in a computer environment that doesn’t often happen in traditional office environments. 

Immersive mixed reality requires a precise and persistent fusion of the real and virtual worlds. This means rendering complex models and scenes in photorealistic detail, rendered at the correct physical location (with respect to both the real and virtual worlds) with the correct scale, and accurate pose. Think of the accuracy and precise nature required in leveraging AR/VR to design, build or repair components of an airline engine, or an advanced surgical device used in medical applications. 

This is achieved today by using discrete GPUs from one or more servers and delivering the rendered frames wirelessly or remotely to the head mounted displays (HMDs) such as the Microsoft HoloLens and the Oculus Quest.

The Need for 3D & AI in Immersive Mixed Reality

One of the key requirements for mixed reality applications is to precisely overlay on an object its model or the digital twin. This helps in providing work instructions for assembly and training, and to catch any errors or defects in manufacturing. The user can also track the object(s) and adjust the rendering as the work progresses. 

Most on-device object tracking systems use 2D image and/or marker-based tracking. This severely limits overlay accuracy in 3D because 2D tracking cannot estimate depth with high accuracy, and consequently the scale, and the pose. This means even though users can get what looks like a good match when looking from one angle and/or position, the overlay loses alignment as the user moves around in 6DOF. Also, the object detection, identification and its scale and orientation estimation — called object registration — is achieved, in most cases, computationally or using simple computer vision methods with standard training libraries (examples: Google MediaPipe, VisionLib). This works well for regular and/or smaller and simpler objects such as hands, faces, cups, tables, chairs, wheels, regular geometry structures, etc. However, for large, complex objects in enterprise use cases, labeled training data (more so in 3D) is not readily available. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to use the 2D image-based tracking to align, overlay, and persistently track the object and fuse the rendered model with it in 3D.

Enterprise-level users are overcoming these challenges by leveraging 3D environments and AI technology into their immersive mixed reality design/build projects.

Deep learning-based 3D AI allows users to identify 3D objects of arbitrary shape and size in various orientations with high accuracy in the 3D space. This approach is scalable with any arbitrary shape and is amenable to use in enterprise use cases requiring rendering overlay of complex 3D models and digital twins with their real-world counterparts. 

This can also be scaled to register with partially completed structures with the complete 3D models, allowing for on-going construction and assembly. Users achieve an accuracy of 1mm — 10mm in the object registration and rendering with this platform approach. The rendering accuracy is primarily limited by the device capability. This approach to 3D object tracking will allow users to truly fuse the real and virtual worlds in enterprise applications, opening many uses including but not limited to: training with work instructions, defect and error detection in construction and assembly, and 3D design and engineering with life size 3D rendering and overlay.

Working in Cloud Environments is Critical

Manufacturers should be cautious in how they design and deploy these technologies, because there is great difference in the platform they are built on and maximized for use.

Even though technologies like AR/VR have been in use for several years, many manufacturers have deployed virtual solutions that are built upon an on-premise environment, where all the technology data is stored locally. 

On-premise AR/VR infrastructures limit the speed and scalability needed for today’s virtual designs, and it limits the ability to conduct knowledge sharing between organizations that can be critical when designing new products and understanding the best way for virtual buildouts.

Manufacturers today are overcoming these limitations by leveraging cloud-based (or remote server based) AR/VR platforms powered by distributed cloud architecture and 3D vision-based AI. These cloud platforms provide the desired performance and scalability to drive innovation in the industry at speed and scale.

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