New VRARA Storytelling Report - featuring best immersive tech companies and studios

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Foreword By VRARA Storytelling Chair, Chris Pfaff

The immersive storytelling industry sector is growing exponentially, as creation engines and game engines are improved to enable rapid immersive content development and delivery. Producers have utilized the COVID-19 pandemic to broaden XR experiences in areas such as virtual theatre (e.g., ‘FindingPandoraX’), gamified live content (e.g., concerts in Roblox, Fortnite and League of Legends), and virtual location-based entertainment (LBE) (e.g., Metropolitan Museum, Krasner-Pollock House).

The entire immersive industry is essentially an exercise in “storytelling,” as virtual experiences deliver a grammar and a narrative structure for educating, informing, and entertaining users/customers/ spectators/fans in new ways. The immersive storytelling industry is now poised to become a larger part of communications and advertising, edutainment, and enterprise collaboration.

What were once utilitarian platforms for enterprise and industrial applications are now broadened to gameplay, requiring skill sets that are far beyond optical networking, GPU design, or display configurations.

Now, immersive storytelling embodies technologists who are as skilled inCAD/CAM,Unreal Engine/Unity, and Blender/Maya as they are in light field optics and field array components.

This report details companies that embody production, story creation, post-production, trans-media, game development, branded content, advertising and communications, and a host of technical areas that enable the new world of storytelling across the broad immersive spectrum.

Also, we invite you to join our weekly Online Meets with guest presenters & live discussions to help you grow your connections, knowledge, and your business.

ICRC joins the VR/AR Associaiton and Melissa Kiehl will Co-Chair our VR for Good Committee

We are thrilled to have Melissa Kiehl co-chair our VR for Good Committee!

Melissa has spent more than 15 years in the humanitarian sector working in program management, resource mobilization, communications and project evaluation with NGOs and UN agencies in Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Liberia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand. She is currently working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which has developed an internal VR development team to create and disseminate virtual environments specific to humanitarian work.

As part of the ICRC Innovation team, Melissa serves as an advisor in the areas of Extended Reality and Strategic Foresight.

“I am delighted to join this team and this endeavor. I feel there is so much we can explore and develop in immersive environments and I am excited to see what the future can bring through VR For Good.”

— Melissa Kiehl, International Committee of the Red Cross

Call for Sponsors: Pitch Competition for Entrepreneurs

Our VRARA Entrepreneurship and Venture Financing Committee is organizing a Pitch Competition for Entrepreneurs and we are seeking sponsors for a cash prize for the winning pitch/Entrepreneur!

If interested to sponsor, email info@thevrara.com asap

Also, our next Online Meet is July 13th. The topic will be "How to build a pitch deck" and we will announce and open up the application for the pitch competition.

Download our new Whitepaper, VR/AR in the Energy Sector authored by industry experts

Download white paper

Energy white paper download

This publications was produced by our Energy Committee.

Authors & Contributors:

• Mr. Suhas P Bhagwat, Avroglide Consultants

• Mr. David Moreno, Virtualware

• Mr. Walter Davis, Aggreko

• Ms. Sophia Moshasha, VRARA Washington DC Chapter

• Mr. Ray Deatherage, GTI

• Mr. Eduardo Neeter, FactualVR

• Mr. Nick McKee, Cyan Stone Innovation

• Mr. Tim Allen, Oberon Technologies, Inc.

This white paper is broken into the following parts:

• Introduction

• Basic Elements and Features of VR and AR technologies and devices for VR and AR

• Relevance of VR AR for Energy Sector

• Typical Applications of VR AR in various functions in the Energy Value Chain

• Sample Use Cases for Energy Sector

• Concluding Remarks

The global energy mix is comprised of Oil, Gas (which also includes liquefied natural gas ie LNG), Coal, Nuclear, Renewable energy (such as Wind, Solar, Hydropower, Biomass, Geothermal, Ocean Waves etc), and Electricity sectors. During the mid 2010s fossil fuels (namely Coal, Oil and Gas) accounted for 82 percent of global primary energy. This percent number is targeted to decline, with large growth in the nuclear and renewable energy sectors (especially wind and solar energy) although the fossil fuels are expected to remain a primary source over the next 20 years. However, due to the current pandemic that hit the world early 2020, the projections are sure to undergo a change.

Energy is the lifeline of everything that happens in the world and this sector is one of the most important components of the Global Economy. The combined business that is conducted globally in the entire value chain of this sector is in multiples of Trillions of dollars and it engages several million personnel worldwide. The Energy sector covers all the stakeholders in its entire value chain such as the Energy organizations (Oil & Gas production units, Refineries, Thermal Power Plants, Nuclear Power Plants, Wind Power Farms, Solar Power Plants, Power Transmission & Distribution Systems etc), Energy Technology / Process Licensors, Engineering organizations, EPC organizations, Manufacturers and Fabricators, Construction companies, Mining Companies (for Coal) as well as several service providers covering HSE, logistics, inspection and other services.

Therefore, as far as Energy as the VRARA Energy community is concerned, the Demand side of VR AR value chain covers all the VRARA members representing the stakeholder organizations in the Energy sector as above. The VR AR Supply side for VRARA Energy community on the other hand covers Digital Technology Creators, VR AR Hardware Manufacturers and VR AR Solutions providers & Content creators with experience in applications for the Energy Sector.

Thank you to our Sponsor!

Oberon Technologies is a leading provider of innovative interactive training solutions, leveraging virtual reality technologies coupled with state-of-the-art information delivery for environments where safety, security, or efficient cost of delivery is critical. More at www.oberontech.com 

VRARA Enterprise Forum 2021 – Round Up by John Woods

By John Woods

The VRARA Enterprise Forum revealed some exciting updates for the VR/AR for enterprise space, with industry leaders Varjo, Lenovo, and Microsoft sharing essential news and insights for 2021 and beyond.

Throughout the event, more than 600 executives from automotive, aerospace, construction, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, and other sectors came together to hear the latest news from global brands leading the VR/AR for enterprise space.

Here are some of the critical updates we gathered from the event.

Varjo Talk Product Design With Mixed Reality

Leading hardware developers, Varjo, started the event with a keynote on the new age of product design with collaborative mixed reality.

Alongside a detailed look at all the latest features of the next-generation of its flagship XR-3 and VR-3 headsets, Head of Design and Research at Varjo, Hannah Nilson, explained how mixed reality is transforming the way businesses engage with customers in 2021 and beyond.

One feature of particular interest discussed during the event was the powerful Varjo Eye-tracking capabilities that enhance consumer research by giving detailed real-time analytics of customer experience in virtual or mixed reality stores based on their point of vision.

With this eye-tracking tool, Varjo tells us that businesses can now monitor and report on valuable metrics based on how customers view their products and what part of the product design best drives conversions.

Lenovo Discuss ThinkReality A3 Release

Lenovo also had some exciting updates to share regarding the upcoming release of its new ThinkReality A3 enterprise-grade augmented reality smart glasses.

While we still have no confirmed price or release date, the Hardware Product Manager of Commercial AR/VR at Lenovo, Mike Lohse, told us the company is currently putting the final touches on its device ahead of the forecasted launch in Q2 2021.

Some of the final touches Lohse mentioned during the keynote included better drop impact protection on the A3 Industrial Edition and the possible inclusion of a second battery pack and software optimization to reduce battery consumption.

He also mentioned that while the ThinkReality A3 currently offers mobile support for Motorola handsets alone, the company is looking to expand its offering to other mobile developers in the future.  

Microsoft Demonstrates Value of Enterprise MR 

Following on from their Microsoft HoloLens Forum and Microsoft Ignite events earlier this year, Microsoft sent Azure Mixed Reality Lead for Microsoft Canada, Sean Graglia, to the VRAR Enterprise Forum to discuss the accelerating value of enterprise MR.

During his keynote, Graglia explained how mixed reality is transforming enterprises across the spectrum, from remote collaboration and training through to sales assistance, design, and prototyping.

According to sources mentioned during the presentations, global spending on mixed reality is expected to reach an astonishing USD 160 billion by 2023, with 87% of large companies already exploring, piloting, or deploying the technology today.

Garcias also added that at least one-third of enterprises would support mixed reality experience platforms, including augmented reality, by 2021, proving how quickly adoption of VR/AR tech is already spreading through the world of big business.

Source

The VR/AR Association publishes the Defense and Intelligence Report featuring over 55 companies

Download report here

Defense Intelligence Report 2021

Thank you to our Sponsors Virtual Heroes (ARA) and Dynepic !

Participate in our VR/AR Global Summits in June and Sept/Oct

Attend our Defense Committee online meets!

Given the world’s current pandemic situation with the need for preparedness in a socially distanced world, it is imperative for our Defense and Intelligence community to have the tools to be able to deploy true-scale situational awareness, training and simulations at the time of need.

Our goal was to provide an in-depth report of immersive technology companies currently doing work in Defense & Intelligence that are able to meet the growing demands of M&S, visualization, collaboration, training solutions and beyond.

Foreword by Virtual Heroes, a Division of ARA

Distance. The pandemic has made this the norm.

We’re social distancing. In-person meetings have been cancelled. The progression of innovation has been challenged without opportunities to sit in a room together and bounce around ideas.

What about distance learning? In the defense industry at least, remote training isn’t new. It has seen an evolution over the years; fading away are the sleep-inducing PowerPoint-based training classes of yesteryear to make way for engaging, input-driven, immersive learning environments.

Training in a virtual environment provides improved context and reference to training activities, versus text-based, multiple-choice, or 2D approaches. The opportunity for learners to familiarize themselves with the spatial elements of an operational environment is crucial. By rendering a full 3D environment in a realtime, high-fidelity game engine technology like the Unreal Engine 4, the learner has the ability to understand not only the required steps for various procedures, but also the relative locations or positions they must move to for successful task completion. This avoids artificial transitions or cuts from one task to the next, which could disorient or cause the learner to lose the context of the training scenario.

To improve Warfighter training, the military has adopted scenario based immersive training environments, which emulate gameplay of popular console games. One such software trainer is ARA’s Post Attack Reconnaissance (PAR) course for the US Air Force. PAR trains and certifies US Airmen in what to do in the event of a chemical, biological, nuclear, radiological or explosive attack on an air base. The course aims to identify the purpose of PAR teams, understand the policies and directives governing them, know-how PAR teams fit in to the incident command structure, and be fully aware of their roles and responsibilities as PAR team members.

The immersive training environment features a responsive 3D setting that simulates conventional and chemical attacks in pre and post-attack missions. We are privileged to have worked on this project.

We are honored to support this Defense Forum report and to work alongside all of these exceptionally gifted, visionary companies in solving our Warfighters’ challenges today. As serious games specialists, our goal is to lead virtual learning into the future. We believe training should be easily accessed, experienced, and customized, for end-users, administrators, and trainers.

Training should scale from single player individualized sessions to instructor-led classes with a broad base of users. Trainees must be able to access content on-demand, 24/7 from a web browser, mobile device, or lightweight training station, regardless of their location. To address performance and bandwidth constraints, training platforms should endeavor to run on “trailing-edge” computer systems, with low network bandwidth and user hardware requirements. Data-driven architectures should enable administrators to create, modify, and remove in-game content quickly and easily. Technologies should integrate easily into learning management systems and web portals providing customized access to training content.

A key element in advancing training technologies is seamless integration of team-based training on top of individual scenarios. By supporting remote learner collaboration, including voice communication and visualization/recognition of every learner in the virtual space, significant immersive virtual training experiences will expand across a much wider domain of learning scenarios.

When expanding this experience to a fully-immersive 3D virtual head-mounted display approach, true Virtual Reality is achieved and the learner experiences a greatly increased opportunity to focus on their tasks at hand. Continuing to blend virtual and live training environments through intelligent combinations of VR and AR technologies will enable us to solve ever more challenging problems for the Warfighter for years to come.

In this time of global uncertainty, let us continue our mission to serve the defense community, delivering solutions that accomplish their objectives and lead to more exciting new possibilities. Stay safe. Happy innovating, even if from a distance.

Randy Brown

ARA VP and Virtual Heroes Division Manager (Virtual Heroes is a Division of ARA)

Foreword by Dynepic, Inc.

“The US will be investing as much as $11B USD by 2022 intoVR/AR training systems, and becoming a primary focus of military innovation.”

Those in the M&S community supportingWarfighters in the US Military with training and operational solutions have witnessed some major shifts in the needs of theDoDover the past few years; the Covid-19 global pandemic has only accelerated these needs.

The first is a shift from legacy technology that is outdated, expensive, immobile, and requires extensive time and funding to maintain, to the need for lighter, more agile technology that can be easily updated to remain relevant and deployed where and when the Warfighter needs it at a lower cost. This is whereVR/AR technology comes into play and we have seen the increase in these technologies present in conferences in recent years.

These condshift is from the need for proprietary do-all platforms and programs, developed and run by a single defense contractor, to modern training systems with an ecosystem"toolbox" that the DoD can choose from, made of common building blocks that can integrate with each other into a modular, open systems architecture (MOSA). This openly innovative, collaborative VR/AR training ecosystem requires a secure, digital infrastructure with open APIs/SDK that supports collaboration between companies as well as with the DoD to ensure these systems and the ecosystem as a whole are agile enough to adapt to the DoD’s evolving requirements. This need has been top of mind for DoD leaders and is echoed in recent US Military strategic documents.

The U.S. Air Force must work differently with other Department of Defense stakeholders, Congress, and traditional and emerging industry partners to streamline processes and incentivize intelligent risk-taking in support of the war fighter and the Nation.

Navigating the challenging times ahead requires effective collaboration among all stakeholders to acknowledge, balance, and share risk overtime—now and into the future. (p.5)

Based on these shifts, I have a few predictions about the requirements and outcomes for future success of companies with VR/AR products in the Defense sector:

Optimize For All Users: The needs of theWarfighters must be considered as these emerging technologies are being designed and developed. This means ensuring that the user experience of VR/AR, both hardware and software, is flexible and optimized for all users. Gone are the days where technology that supported only military-aged males was good enough.

Focus and Collaborate: Companies must continue to innovate, but with focus, to contribute the best products in their specialty, and then partner with other companies whose products are complimentary in support of a greater ecosystem. Whether your expertise lies in development of AR or VR apps, headsets, haptic gloves, AI models, instructional systems design support, etc.,we predict that the most successfulVR/AR companies will be the ones that focus on what they do best and are able to collaborate well with others to provide even more optimal combined capabilities for theWarfighters.

Create New Capabilities: Bringing all of these complimentary products and services from various companies together will create capabilities for Warfighters that would not be possible with stove-piped systems. For example, when AR and VR training apps are integrated with a secure, open, agnostic LMS platform via APIs, courses made up of multivendor, multi-media content can be curated, student performance data can be stored in a common data repository, and AI models can analyze this data to truly personalize learning, not just within applications, but across them.

Enable Rapid Innovation: This VR/AR ecosystem of the future will include a common architecture, playbook, and open APIs, democratizing the ability to support immersive training creation and optimal use of VR/AR(e.g. using it to train different knowledge and skills as appropriate for optimal training effectiveness) so that Warfighter needs can be met at the speed of relevance.

Ultimately, this ecosystem and pipeline of VR/AR will support cutting edge training and operations and will adapt to the changing needs of theWarfighters because the companies and individuals with the best products who work closely with each other and with the DoD will rise to the top. It is certainly an exciting time to be in theVR/AR field, especially in the Defense sector, and we at Dynepic look forward to working with many of you to Invent the Future!

Christina Padron

Director ofPartnerships and Growth Dynepic, Inc.

Call for Sponsors - VR AR Energy White Paper

If interested to Sponsor, email info@thevrara.com

This publication outlines the essential features of VR AR technologies, highlight their relevance to business functions in the Energy sector and presents an overview of applications & use cases of VR AR, highlighting the benefits for business processes.

This publication will be published on the VRARA and our partner's websites and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), Social Media (50K+ followers) at our VR/AR Global Summits, and via our partners. You can see our other Publications here, which have been downloaded 1000s times!

Authors:

- Suhas P Bhagwat

- Mr. David Moreno - Virtualware 

- Mr. Walter Davis - Aggreko 

- Ms. Sophia Moshasha - VRARA

- Mr. Ray Deatherage - GTI 

- Mr. Eduardo Neeter - FactualVR

Contents

• Introduction

• Basic Elements and Features of VR and AR technologies and devices for VR and AR

• 2.1 Basic Features of VR and AR and The Reality Spectrum

• 2.2 Devices for VR, AR and MR

• Relevance of VR AR for Energy Sector

• Underlying factors in Energy Sector

• Imperatives that make VR and AR useful for Energy Sector

• Typical Applications of VR, AR and MR in Energy Sector

• 4.1 Engineering 

• 4.2  Marketing

• 4.3 Plant Operations, Project Management, Supply Chain Management, Inspection

• 4.4  Manufacturing, Construction, Fabrication

• 4.5  VR Training 

• Sample Use Cases for Energy Value Chain  

• Workforce training through VR Rooms

• Immersive Employee Development, Training & Certification

• Virtual Classroom Training Activity on Components

• Equipment/Product Training Practical Assessment

• VR Based Training of Heavy Duty Crane Operators

• VR Based Training for the Natural Gas Distribution Industry

• MR Based Remote Assistance in Sub-Stations Operations

• Concluding Remarks

The global energy mix is comprised of Oil, Gas (which also includes liquefied natural gas ie LNG), Coal, Nuclear, Renewable energy (such as Wind, Solar, Hydropower, Biomass, Geothermal, Ocean Waves etc), and Electricity sectors. During the mid 2010s fossil fuels (namely Coal, Oil and Gas) accounted for 82 percent of global primary energy. This percent number is targeted to decline, with large growth in the nuclear and renewable energy sectors (especially wind and solar energy) although the fossil fuels are expected to remain a primary source over the next 20 years. However, due to the current pandemic that hit the world early 2020, the projections are sure to undergo a change. 

Energy is the lifeline of everything that happens in the world and this sector is one of the most important components of the Global Economy.  The combined business that is conducted globally in the entire value chain of this sector is in multiples of Trillions of dollars and it engages several million personnel worldwide.

The Energy sector covers all the stakeholders in its entire value chain such as the Energy organizations (Oil & Gas production units, Refineries, Thermal Power Plants, Nuclear Power Plants, Wind Mill Farms, Solar Power Plants, Electricity Distribution Systems etc), Energy  Technology / Process Licensors, Engineering organizations, EPC organizations, Manufacturers and Fabricators, Construction companies, Mining Companies (for Coal) as well as several service providers covering HSE, logistics, inspection and other services. 

Therefore, as far as Energy Committee under VR/AR Association (VRARA) is concerned, the Demand side of VR AR value chain covers all the VRARA members representing the stakeholder organizations in the Energy sector as above. The VR AR Supply side for Energy on the other hand covers Digital Technology Creators, VR AR Hardware Manufacturers and VR AR Solutions providers & Content creators with experience in applications for the Energy Sector. 

Just as for any industrial sector, the emerging technologies of VR and AR hold very significant potential to bring value to various business functions in the Energy Sector by way of enhanced efficiencies and effectiveness. Various stakeholders in the Energy Sector have been taking serious note of this and therefore increased adoption of VR and AR in the sector has been evident over the recent years. It is expected that this will see a steep growth in the coming years. 

The Ecosystem created by VRARA provides a common platform for all the stakeholders in the VR AR value chain of the Energy sector. The objective of this White Paper, therefore, is to bring out the essential features of VR AR technologies, highlight the relevance of the same to business functions in the Energy Sector and present an overview of applications and use cases of VR AR duly highlighting the benefits of the same for business processes. 

This White Paper covers various topics on the subject. 

If interested to Sponsor, email info@thevrara.com

The Challenges of Audio in Extended Reality

Topic #1: Virtual Reality Communities

The intricate process of creating animation content such as characters, sets, and the interface design is exhilarating.  As a 3D animator and creator, I love everything about the development process of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) content, which is now better known by the combined terminology of Extended Reality (XR).  Conversely, as a user there are times when it can be daunting, and things don’t work the way I think they should or could.  As a sound engineer and designer, a tremendous area of consideration for me is audio quality.  Just like in a Google or Zoom online meeting, I am not concerned about how I appear to others because usually my camera is turned off.  The audio quality and its consistent clarity and the ability to hear others with clarity is my foremost concern.

During a recent test for the VRARA of different VR software that provides meeting spaces in virtual reality (such as Engage and Altspace, among others) the team ran into some interesting situations. We wanted a VR application for VRARA panel discussions to be held during the VR/AR Global Summit Online Sept 30 - Oct 2, 2020.  As you may know, many VR applications provide meeting spaces in virtual reality where users can have conversations, watch videos, play games, and browse the Internet. The avatars in these applications can automatically mimic a user's body language which enhances the “in-person” communication.

As we moved forward in our testing, it was soon discovered that the application cost, room size, and most of all, support for the application became a huge issue. We found the AltspaceVR application to be the best for the quick turnaround that we were looking for.  Our goal was to use the application for the VRARA panel discussion, but very quickly an audio quality situation arose. The boardroom in AltSpace (the set) and my AltSpace avatar (the character) looked great, but the issue arose when we started to have one-on-one conversations within the boardroom.  Granted, AltSpace is great for community presentations and even demo situations.  Where it falls short is audio quality and clarity during personal interaction and one-on-one communication.  This significantly impedes networking on this platform.

Let me explain in more detail the audio situation within the boundaries of personal interaction in a meeting.  In an AltSpace meeting room with ~50 other users, things tend to get hectic when the moderator turns on all the attendees’ microphones to introduce themselves and interact with others around them.  Herein lies the problem—there is currently no way to have a private discussion with someone without hearing every other discussion in the room.  Because of this dilemma, people leave the current meeting to find another room to meet in private.  Unfortunately, the process of getting a private meeting room is time consuming and cumbersome.  This means you have left the main meeting for this private discussion and now have perhaps lost the opportunity to meet other users.  In my eyes this is a major issue and defeats the purpose of being at the meeting to network with others.  A great advantage is lost.

I see two features that would be brilliant additions to AltSpace and would be an incredible game-changer for the program.  First, I would suggest:

• Add an area for appointments

In such an area, new acquaintances could arrange impromptu appointments to avoid fighting against the collective noise of everyone in the boardroom.  There could be a reservation system in place so that users could reserve an area before, during or after the boardroom meeting for a conversation. My second suggestion is:

• Add a “bubble” around the user to create a private meeting atmosphere

This “bubble” would create a useful environment for interacting with others without the user needing to arrange a private meeting room.  Easily configurable privacy settings would allow the user to have private impromptu conversations.  The addition of these two features would significantly improve AltSpace’s capability as a networking platform.

These would be my suggestions for Altspace to add to their VR application.  As I have already said, my specialty and passion as a sound engineer and designer keep me from looking past these important details of audio challenges.  Networking is vital to the process of companies making connections and growing.  I believe that by implementing these two features, Altspace can become an even more widely used application, especially as a networking platform. See you next time!

Dale L. Campbell Jr

dalecampbelljr@positiveproductionsplus.com

Positive Productions Plus

VRARA Marketing & Advertising Committee

Aubrey "Brey" Tucker of Autodesk appointed as Co-Chair of our AEC Industry Committee

We are pleased to appoint Aubrey "Brey" Tucker as Co-Chair of our VRARA AEC Committee.

Aubrey "Brey" Tucker is an Enabler, Technologist, International BIM Speaker, Author, University Lecturer, and Revit Expert with an extensive career with skyscrapers, hospitals, schools, airports and technology implementation for architects, engineers, and contractors. He's a Senior Industry Manager at Autodesk, where he focuses on the Project Delivery global strategy, Common Data Environments, BIM and ISO compliance and the data thread that ties many of Autodesk's cloud and desktop offerings together.

He's been using VR for a decade and AR since HoloLens; loves thinking about what the next immersive interfaces will be, and how design can be experienced digitally. His XR interests were a part of what got him on the corporate innovative technology team at Stantec where he investigated many potential business adoptions of emerging technology like data visualization from siloed data, quantum computing for transportation, AI-object recognition & inference, computational/automated design and many others.

Brey resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is additionally a part of the Detroit-Volterra Foundation, UBC SALA, CANBIM and BuildingSMART Canada.

“I’m really excited to rejoin the AEC Committee and be a part of the future of immersive technology implementation within the AECO industries. I love seeing where the innovation takes root and learning what the world is creating in this space. I hope to continue to develop the potential workflows for real-time design reviews, as-built interpretation and immersive decision making. Looking forward to another term with you all; see you at the next meeting!”

— Brey Tucker

Call for Participation! Submit your company for our Storytelling Report! Report to feature best immersive media companies

Submit your info to get featured in our Report here

The VR/AR storytelling industry sector is growing exponentially, as creation engines and game engines are improved to enable rapid immersive content development and delivery. Producers have utilized the COVID-19 pandemic to broaden immersive experiences in areas such as virtual theatre (e.g., ‘Finding Pandora X’), gamified live content (e.g., concerts in Roblox, Fortnite and League of Legends), and virtual location-based entertainment (LBE) (e.g., Metropolitan Museum, Krasner-Pollock House).

The entire VR/AR industry is essentially an exercise in “storytelling,” as virtual experiences deliver a grammar and a narrative structure for educating, informing, and entertaining users/customers/spectators/fans in new ways. The VR/AR storytelling industry is now poised to become a larger part of communications and advertising, edutainment, and enterprise collaboration. What were once utilitarian platforms for enterprise and industrial applications are now broadened to game play, requiring skill sets that are far beyond optical networking, GPU design, or display configurations.

Now, VR/AR storytelling embodies technologists who are as skilled in CAD/CAM, Unreal Engine/Unity, and Blender/Maya as they are in light field optics and field array components. This report will detail companies that embody production, story creation, post-production, transmedia, game development, branded content, advertising and communications, and a host of technical areas that enable the new world of storytelling across the broad VR/AR spectrum.

Deadline to Submit is Feb 19, 2021

Submit here

If interested to Sponsor, email info@thevrara.com

Virtually yours,

Chris Pfaff

VRARA Co-Chair, Storytelling

The United States will invest $11B USD into VR/AR, with a primary focus of military innovation. Get featured in our VRARA Defense & Intelligence Report!

Submit your info for our Report here!

“The United States will be investing as much as $11B USD by 2022 into virtual, augmented and mixed reality training systems, with extended reality becoming a primary focus of military innovation.”[1] 

Those in the Modeling & Simulation (M&S) community supporting Warfighters in the United States Military with training and operational solutions have witnessed some major shifts in the needs of the Department of Defense (DoD) over the past few years; the Covid-19 global pandemic has only accelerated these needs. 

The first is a shift from legacy technology that is outdated, expensive, immobile, and requires extensive time and funding to maintain, to the need for lighter, more agile technology that can be easily updated to remain relevant and deployed where and when the Warfighter needs it at a lower cost. This is where virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (extended reality, or XR, collectively) technology comes into play. We have seen the increase in XR technologies across industry events in recent years. 

The second shift is from the need for proprietary do-all platforms and programs, developed and run by a single defense contractor, to modern training systems with an ecosystem "toolbox" that the DoD can choose from, made of common building blocks that can integrate with each other into a modular, open systems architecture (MOSA). This openly innovative, collaborative XR training ecosystem requires a secure, digital infrastructure with open APIs/SDK that supports collaboration between companies as well as with the DoD to ensure these systems and the ecosystem as a whole are agile enough to adapt to the DoD’s evolving requirements. This need has been top of mind for DoD leaders reflected in recent US Military strategic documents.

“The U.S. Air Force must work differently with other Department of Defense stakeholders, Congress, and traditional and emerging industry partners to streamline processes and incentivize intelligent risk-taking in support of the warfighter and the Nation. Navigating the challenging times ahead requires effective collaboration among all stakeholders to acknowledge, balance, and share risk over time—now and into the future.”

— Gen. Charles Brown, Air Force Chief of Staff

Based on these shifts, I have a few predictions about the requirements and outcomes for future success of companies with XR products in the Defense sector:

• Optimize For All Users: The needs of the Warfighters must be considered as these emerging technologies are being designed and developed. This means ensuring that the user experience of the XR technology, both hardware and software, is flexible and optimized for all users. Gone are the days where technology that supported only military-aged males was good enough.

• Focus and Collaborate: Companies must continue to innovate, but with focus, to contribute the best products in their specialty, and then partner with other companies whose products are complimentary in support of a greater ecosystem. Whether your expertise lies in development of AR or VR apps, headsets, haptic gloves, AI models, instructional systems design support, etc., we predict that the most successful XR companies will be the ones that focus on what they do best and are able to collaborate well with others to provide even more optimal combined capabilities for the Warfighters.

• Create New Capabilities: Bringing all of these complimentary products and services from various companies together will create capabilities for Warfighters that would not be possible with stove-piped systems. For example, when AR and VR training apps are integrated with a secure, open, agnostic LMS platform via APIs, courses made up of multi-vendor, multi-media content can be curated, student performance data can be stored in a common data repository, and AI models can analyze this data to truly personalize learning, not just within applications, but across them.  

• Enable Rapid Innovation: This XR ecosystem of the future will include a common architecture, playbook, and open APIs, democratizing the ability to support immersive training creation and optimal use of XR technologies (e.g. using AR and VR to train different knowledge and skills as appropriate for optimal training effectiveness) so that Warfighter needs can be met at the speed of relevance.  

Ultimately, this ecosystem and pipeline of XR technology will support cutting edge training and operations and will adapt to the changing needs of the Warfighters because the companies and individuals with the best products who work closely with each other and with the DoD will rise to the top. It is certainly an exciting time to be in the XR field, especially in the Defense sector, and we at Dynepic look forward to working with many of you to Invent the Future! 

Don’t miss the opportunity to be featured in our report. Submit your info here!

Virtually yours,

Christina Padron

Director of Partnerships and Growth

Dynepic, Inc.

Open Call for Submissions: Defense & Intelligence Industry Sector Report

Submit here

You get to be featured in this report for free thanks to sponsorships from ARA and Dynepic!

Given the world’s current pandemic situation with the need for preparedness in a socially distanced world, it is imperative for our Defense and Intelligence community to have the tools to be able to deploy true-scale situational awareness, training and simulations at the time of need.

Our goal is to provide an in-depth report of immersive technology companies currently doing work in Defense & Intelligence that are able to meet the growing demands of M&S, visualization, collaboration, training solutions and beyond.

This report will be published on the VRARA and partner's sites and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our next VR/AR Global Summit Online, and via our partners.

Submit here

Call for Sponsors for our VRARA Enterprise Forum in March 2021!

We expect 500+ executives from top vendors and end-users/brands, rapid presentations, sessions, and best-in-class online networking! Email info@thevrara.com for more info!

Call for Sponsors for our VRARA Healthcare Forum on Dec 16 (Online Event)

Register here

Email info@thevrara.com for sponsorship opportunities

ONLINE EVENT
Starts 12pm EST / 17:00 GMT

The VRARA Healthcare Forum brings together the best minds in the Virtual & Augmented Reality ecosystem in the medical sector! Meet the top vendors and end-users who are leading in this space!

In addition to presentations and demos, we will have the best-in-class online networking! We will have group networking, plus, a 1-on-1 networking area that will enable you to connect on video with all the Speakers & Sponsors and other executives attending, where you can preview each other's credentials and bio, and talk business!

We expect 200+ executives from leading vendors and top brands/end-users.

Confirmed end-users/brands include: Mayo Clinic among many others!

More info and Register here

Call for Sponsors and Submissions: Defense and Intelligence Industry Sector Report! Deadline to Submit is Jan 15

Submit here

For sponsorship opportunities, email info@thevrara.com

Given the world’s current pandemic situation with the need for preparedness in a socially distanced world, it is imperative for our Defense and Intelligence community to have the tools to be able to deploy true-scale situational awareness, training and simulations at the time of need.

Our goal is to provide an in-depth report of immersive technology companies currently doing work in Defense & Intelligence that are able to meet the growing demands of M&S, visualization, collaboration, training solutions and beyond.

This report will be published on the VRARA and partner's sites and will be promoted to the industry globally via our Newsletter (35K+ subs), Website (20K monthly visitors), at our next VR/AR Global Summit Online, and via our partners.

Submit here

For Sponsorship opportunities, email info@thevrara.com

Deadline to Submit is January 15, 2020.

Tesla, UPS, Volkswagen confirmed for our VRARA Training Summit on Dec 3!

We are excited to share with you that the confirmed end-users/brands for our VRARA Training Summit include Tesla, UPS, Volkswagen among many others!

Our Summit will bring together the best minds in the VR/AR ecosystem in the Training sector! In addition to presentations and demos, we will have the best-in-class online networking! We will have group networking, plus, a 1-on-1 networking area that will enable you to connect on video with other executives, where you can preview each other's credentials and bio, and talk business!

We expect 300-800+ executives from leading vendors and top brands/end-users.

Register here

The VR/AR Association publishes an Education Report featuring over 70 companies and startups

Download report

VRARA Education Report 2020

Meet many of these companies at our VR/AR Global Summit ONLINE Sept 30-Oct 2

Foreword by 3D ORGANON

In this ever-changing world, it is urgent that we respond to the growing demand for a wider range of technology-enhanced curriculum. Eager to respond to this demand, we create3D Organon with the promise to continue to cultivate the dynamics for new learning paradigms and advanced medical education.

Based on our experience as qualified medical professionals, we can help healthcare focused audiences land on the best solutions to craft their own use case scenario and make the most out of edge virtual reality (VR) technologies.

Available in VirtualReality (VR), MixedReality (MR),Augmented Reality (AR), desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, 3DOrganon turns into the most advanced Extended Reality (XR) anatomy platform. Given that the world is witnessing one of the most pivotal moments in the last few decades the unhindered delivery of education seems to be more than imperative. We are ready to address the arising challenges regarding the new reality created due toCovid-19. This is a momentous occasion to overcome limitations and benefit from the high value potential enabled by virtual reality technologies.We can guarantee continuous delivery of healthcare education in safe environments in real time that suit both on-campus and remote users.

We have focused on driving anatomy to new levels and allow a broad spectrum of health professionals, practitioners, educators and learners to access our meaningful learning content from their own devices regardless of their location. By supporting various forms of online learning modalities we facilitate profound understanding of the functions of the human body, through an extensive knowledge-base of anatomical definitions and a plethora of highly-detailed 3Dmodels offered. Our app covers more than 10,000anatomical structures organized in 15 body systems, and over 550 detailed animations of body actions of muscles and organs all of which add significant value to the medical and healthcare education.

Users are free to toggle between body systems, view, review, hide or fade structures, run interactive clinical anatomy quizzes, self directed study, and communicate queries with text and voice chat systems. Under the circumstances enabled by immersive technologies, sessions facilitate deeper immersion, stronger memory imprints and longer retention.

Hundreds of prestigious institutions, such as universities, hospitals, military units, associations, museums, libraries, and high schools have entrusted our app to drive leaps in learning. 3DOrganon aims to bring the world closer. For this reason, its extensive knowledge-base of anatomical definitions is available in 15 languages: English, traditional and simplified Chinese, German, Italian, Spanish, Georgian,Polish,Portuguese, Latin (terminology), Russian, Ukrainian, French, Greek, and Thai.DeepQ, the healthcare department of the tech giant HTC and a strategic partner of3D Organon, has the exclusive distribution of the platform in the Asia region to turn the dream into concrete reality.

Despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, we can offer the requisite building blocks for optimized learning and training possibilities with minimized costs. A virtual reality ecosystem seems to be the safest conduit to predict a brighter outlook for medical education.

We had better not miss out on the opportunity.

Virtually,

Dr. Athanasios Raikos

CEO, 3DOrganon

Dr. Panagiota Kordali

Director, 3DOrganon

Dr. Sana Farid of Munfarid appointed Co-Chair of VRARA Healthcare Committee

We are thrilled to have Dr. Sana Farid, a General Surgeon, Co-Founder & CEO at Munfarid, President MENA Chapter, and Co-Chair Healthcare Committee to provide her thought-leadership to help accelerate the industry for us all.

Dr. Sana Farid is a zealous Healthcare provider, she is a General Surgeon, Educator, and strives to utilize Futuristic Technologies to improve Healthcare practices.

As a co-founder of Munfarid, Dr. Sana leads one of the pioneers and spearheading XR companies in the region. Munfarid is an elegant concoction of dedication and empowerment via disruptive intelligence. Discovering and implementing revolutionary Immersive applications for Educational, Training, and Healthcare industries.

Her ingenious vision led to the foundation of the VRARA MENA Chapter helping to expand, reach, and connect ingenious XR experts and enthusiasts.

At her new role as Co-Chair of the Healthcare Committee, Dr. Sana aspires to augment the scope of XR in patient care, impacts the lives of millions in developing countries, builds industry standards for XR in Healthcare, and make the world a better place.

“Immersive Tech, intelligent connectivity coupled with human interaction are opening new doors for major revolutions in the Healthcare industry, from hands-on training, clinical skills development, patient education, and awareness, as well as therapeutic uses. The future of healthcare is technology-oriented.

We are truly living in revolutionary times for healthcare thanks to the advent of digital health, and to drive such innovations, the VRAR Association is working incessantly, bringing the global XR communities closer together enabling a robust and fruitful interaction between like-minded entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts and a chance to learn and acquire knowledge from each other.

Our mission at the Healthcare committee will be to spread the knowledge and developments in healthcare which will usher the real era of the Healthcare industry” 

- Dr. Sana Farid