Volkswagen Group of America visualizes vehicles for 2030 and beyond

This study outlines how Volkswagen uses VR and other advanced visualization techniques to visualize futuristic vehicles. It gives a behind the scenes look at Volkswagen Group of America's Innovation Center California in Silicon Valley and how they use advanced visualization techniques, includingVR, to explore futuristic scenarios and vehicles.

What will the vehicles of the future look like? How will drivers and passengers interact with them? How is autonomous driving going to become a reality? These are some of the many questions a group of engineers, designers, scientists and futurists are answering at Volkswagen Group of America’s Innovation Center California (ICC) in Silicon Valley.

At the ICC, one of three global research centers for Volkswagen Group Innovation, the team’s charter is as inspiring as it is challenging: to predict what the world will look like in 2030 and beyond. Forecasting the far future helps the automaker better anticipate and identify the needs of its customers across its worldwide family of brands, including Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Volkswagen.

To show the future, the ICC doesn’t use a crystal ball. It uses Unity. With expertise spanning film and animation, software engineering, and VR development and design, the ICC’s group of Unity users stretch the software to its full capabilities to solve diverse problems, including:

• Interaction with far-future scenarios (interior and exterior design and customer journey design)

• Human-machine interface (HMI) design, including 3D user interfaces (UIs)

• Synthetic data generation for machine learning-powered products

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Varjo becomes the First Extended Reality Hardware Provider to Join Unity's Verified Solution Partner Program

The partnership between Varjo and Unity will empower even more professionals to build high-quality, photorealistic 3D experiences and drive innovation across industries. As a Unity Verified Solution Partner, all Varjo headsets – including the newly released Varjo XR-3 and VR-3 – now have complete, verified and seamless compatibility with the latest Unity releases.

Helsinki, Finland – March 2, 2021 – Varjo, the leader in high-performance XR/VR hardware and software, today announced that it is now a Unity Verified Solution Partner – the first official XR/VR hardware provider to join this exclusive program. Unity is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D content. Creators, ranging from game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers, filmmakers, and more, use Unity to make their imaginations come to life.

The partnership between Varjo and Unity will empower even more professionals to build high-quality, photorealistic 3D experiences and drive innovation across industries. As a Unity Verified Solution Partner, all Varjo headsets – including the newly released Varjo XR-3 and VR-3 – now have complete, verified and seamless compatibility with the latest Unity releases. Unity developers can now take full advantage of Varjo’s unique VR and XR capabilities such as industry-leading human-eye resolution visual fidelity (at over 70 pixels per degree), photorealistic video pass-through mixed reality, real-time chroma keying, and more.

“Varjo is constantly pushing the bounds of what is possible for high-fidelity immersive experiences,” said Timoni West, Vice President, Augmented & Virtual Reality at Unity. “Unity developers can now be sure their high-resolution, detailed environments and experiences will display beautifully on Varjo devices, and trust that their applications will work seamlessly with these groundbreaking headsets.”

With this formalized collaboration between Unity and Varjo, it is now extremely easy for developers to create real-time 3D mixed reality content for Varjo hardware. Thanks to its low-latency video pass-through, the Varjo XR-3 is the first and the only device capable of portraying all aspects of extended reality, from virtual reality to photorealistic augmented and mixed reality, and offering combined AR/VR support in Unity.

The Varjo XR-3 is the first and the only device capable of portraying all aspects of extended reality, from virtual reality to photorealistic augmented and mixed reality, and offering combined AR/VR support in Unity.

“Together, Unity and Varjo are powering the creation of immersive experiences that appear as real as the world we live in,” says Marcus Olsson, Head of Software Partnerships at Varjo. “We’re confident that our partnership can help drive a paradigm mindset shift from developing real-time 3D content, towards building true extended reality experiences where users can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is virtual.”

In 2019, Varjo and Volvo Cars utilized Unity to develop the world’s first pass-through video viewing, enabling users to see what is going on in the outside world. Combining the capabilities of Varjo’s technology with Volvo’s superior models and Unity’s photorealistic graphics, Volvo developers can now perform design-studies of future vehicle models before they are even built by adding photorealistic virtual elements to the interior of the vehicle.

“Through our combined use of Varjo’s mixed reality headsets and the unique power of Unity’s real-time 3D engine, we are pioneering automotive design work,” said Christian Braun, Vice President of Visual Art Design at Volvo. “The immersive experiences we are able to create are so realistic that we can now accurately explore and test new design possibilities for aesthetics and safety that weren’t possible until now. Not only are these advanced technologies enhancing and streamlining our entire design process from start to finish, but Varjo and Unity are also getting us closer to realizing our dream for the future of creativity.”

As a Unity Verified Solution Partner, Varjo will continue to work with Unity to make it even easier for enterprises to develop compelling immersive solutions.

To meet this end, Varjo would like to invite all Unity developers, enterprise integrators and software providers to join Varjo’s Software Partner Program. By applying to the program, Unity developers can unlock significant discounts and benefits on Varjo’s industry-leading devices. Qualified Unity developers may even receive a free Varjo device to kickstart developing photorealistic VR/XR experiences today.

For more information and to apply, please visit: https://developer.varjo.com/

Unity Becomes Member of the VR/AR Association

San Francisco, March 3, 2021 - Unity is now a member of VR/AR Association and will participate in the Association's initiatives by which Unity’s teams will be connected with VR and AR organizations around the world. In addition, Unity will drive several initiatives in collaboration with VR/AR Association in order to push the usage of those technologies and in several other fields. 

“We are excited Unity has joined our global association. Unity is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D content and we look forward to accelerating the market together with smart growth globally," Kris Kolo, Global Executive Director, VR/AR Association. 

“As a leading platform in powering AR and VR applications, Unity is counted on by brands across gaming, automotive, manufacturing, architecture and construction to bring solutions to their product lifecycle,” said Braelyn Johnson, Product Marketing Manager, Unity. “The VR/AR Association consists of the best virtual reality and augmented reality solution providers within enterprise and media entertainment industries.”

For more information please visit www.thevrara.com

For more info on Unity visit www.unity.com

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About the VR/AR Association

The VR/AR Association (VRARA) is an international organization designed to foster  collaboration between innovative companies and people in the virtual reality and augmented 

reality ecosystem that accelerates growth, fosters research and education, helps develop 

industry standards, connects member organizations and promotes the services of member companies.

About Unity 

Unity (NYSE: U) is the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D (RT3D) content. Creators, ranging from game developers to artists, architects, automotive designers, filmmakers, and others, use Unity to make their imaginations come to life. Unity’s platform provides a comprehensive set of software solutions to create, run and monetize interactive, real-time 2D and 3D content for mobile phones, tablets, PCs, consoles, and augmented and virtual reality devices. The company’s 1,800+ person research and development team keeps Unity at the forefront of development by working alongside partners to ensure optimized support for the latest releases and platforms. Apps developed by Unity creators were downloaded more than five billion times per month in 2020. For more information, please visit www.unity.com. 

Contact

Kris Kolo  kris@thevrara.com 

PACE becomes Unity Verified Solutions Partner

Pacelab WEAVR is an end-to-end platform for creating, managing, and distributing AR/VR training and operations content across all devices, including mobile/tablet/pc. The authoring component is built on top of Unity, and the rest of the platform extends Unity into a full training solution with content management, user management, collaboration and remote instruction, analytics, and a fun end-user application for accessing and using the content. Check out www.pacelabweavr.com for more info (also on www.unity.com/products/weavr).

BERLIN/MILAN, 19 January 2020 – PACE, a TXT company, announced today that it is now a Unity Verified Solutions Partner. Being a Verified Solutions Partner means that the company's flagship product for extended reality (XR) training, Pacelab WEAVR, has been verified by Unity (NYSE: U) to ensure its SDK is optimized for the latest version of the Unity editor, ensuring compatibility and a seamless user experience. Pacelab WEAVR is a fully scalable XR software platform that enables any company, in any industry, to develop and manage immersive training programs. As part of the partnership agreement, Unity will resell the Pacelab WEAVR XR training solution.

"We are thrilled to become a Unity Verified Solutions Partner," said Josh Swanson, Head of Extended Reality at PACE. "We have designed Pacelab WEAVR completely around Unity's real-time 3D development platform. This partnership will take our product to the next level, with greater exposure, meaning more people will have access to next-generation training."

Pacelab WEAVR offers a complete solution for industrial-scale XR training, consisting of three primary product modules which provide companies with everything needed to create, implement and manage extended reality training in-house:

• An intuitive authoring tool that requires no programing skills and significantly simplifies the creation of XR content ("WEAVR Creator")

• A learners’ hub that allows students to easily access and launch training content on the device of their choice, from desktop PCs and notebooks to mobile devices and AR/VR headsets ("WEAVR Player")

• A web portal for collaboration, remote instruction, reporting and managing the overall extended reality platform ("WEAVR Manager")

Immersive interactive training is a form of experiential learning, or learning-by-doing, which has proved to be the most effective way of acquiring and retaining procedural knowledge and technical skills, significantly enhancing not only recall and retention but also overall user engagement. Organizations providing on-demand, device-agnostic training resources to train alone or in groups, with or without instructor guidance, can also greatly reduce the need for employee travel and/or costly physical training equipment.

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About PACE – a TXT company

Founded in 1995, PACE has built a reputation for developing trail-blazing software products for the global aerospace and aviation industry. As part of TXT e-solutions, PACE advances customers' digital transformation with off-the-shelf solutions for preliminary aircraft & systems design, product configuration, aircraft analysis & evaluation, flight operations and extended reality training.

TXT e-solutions is an international, specialized provider of advanced software solutions supporting customers in high-tech markets in their mission- and business-critical core processes and throughout their product lifecycles. Headquartered in Milan, TXT is listed on the Italian Stock Exchange and has subsidiaries in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

For more information visit www.pace.de and www.pacelabweavr.com

Resources & additional information

PDF version (English)

More about PACE GmbH

More about Unity's Verified Solutions Partner program