by Luca Lukats
@CambashiL
LinkedIn
Cambashi was present at the Develop3D 2019 Live conference in Sheffield where we listened to several very interesting talks. While my colleagues attended the main stage, I returned with some great learnings from the Visualization/VR Stream stage.
VR in use
We could see how VR is being used in some talks. Ben Widdowson from Siemens gave the audience insight into how Slipstream enables high-end VR design reviews saving time and money. Dalia Lasaite from CGTrader, Julia Britton from Bomper Studio and Henrik Wann Jensen from Luxion expressed the importance of the increasing demand for product visualization which changes the product experience for all of us. They presented us visually engaging ways of promoting a product by showing us impressive examples following technology trends. So, they talked about what is feasible today with technology and the results really are astonishing. I was excited to hear where VR is predicted to be going.
Future of VR and AR
I believe Vasileios Balampanos from Riot CGI and especially Mark Simpson from CAD Schroer had very exciting prognosis on the future of VR (Mark on AR and MR Apps as well). Vasileios talked about the history of VR and what happens in our brain and nervous system while using it. According to his presentation the main issue with it is that people get motion sickness when having the headset on for longer than a couple of minutes. Proprioception is the cause of it, the sense of body position and balance, so the conflict between motion that the eyes and the brain experience but not the body. So, although there are ways around it, by literally tricking the brain (like eating ginger, using a special chemical, or stimulators behind the ears), duration of usage is limited which therefore limits the end-usage as well.
Mark was more optimistic regarding the future – and was examining a wider range of AR and VR practice – based on a sales forecast by Gartner, which clearly shows quick increase of acceptance of the applications in society and industry. He talks about the development possibilities for AR as well, how some hardware independent SDKs are available already from the big players, like Vuforia from PTC, ARCore from Google, ARKit from Apple, or Windows Mixed Reality from Microsoft. Also mentions some of the useful techniques, such as motion tracking, area recognition, image/object recognition, interaction and multi-user. As Mark says, using AR/VR/MR applications to test your products is definitely an ultramodern thing to do and the future holds a lot of excitement still!
Overall, venue, all talks I attended and organization were excellent, certainly worth going and finding out more about what technology helps us achieve and learn about future directions.
Did you go to the Develop3D conference? What were your key takeaways? Let us know in the comments below.