virtual reality application

Virtual Reality Applications Beyond Gaming

The future of virtual reality technology is quickly evolving ever since Palmer Lucky, founder of Oculus VR, kickstarted the virtual reality revolution. Although Oculus is primarily focusing on gaming, it is apparently that VR will have a broader economic impact on our society beyond gaming in film, art, design, healthcare, sport, tourism, social networking, and education. VR application could have significant impact on the way we live, solving the most prominent issues by leveraging the latest virtual reality technology!

Virtual Reality Accelerator

VR is a technology that will transform every industry in the next two decades, similar to when the Internet was years ago but now is in our everyday lives.

Similar to the Y-combinator model, the Rothenberh ventures launched a VR accelerator named “River.”

river accelerator vc vr

 

“2015 will be the year of virtual reality” says investor Mike Rothenberg. The low latency, head tracking, and high screen resolution technology is finally here to deliver consumer ready VR headsets. Current fragmentation in the virtual reality industry still means the hardware, software, and content startups will need to team up to achieve greater success.

Rothenberg accelerator plans to cluster virtual world startup companies and assist them by providing office space and capital of $100,000 per startup. The River accelerator recruited respected mentors of Dropbox, Zynga, and Mozilla, Sixense, Leap Motion, and AlspaceVR for the community to help the entrepreneurs with everything from business model development to design.

They are now accepting applications for the program, with a goal to accelerate up to 10 startups per program. The startups will graduate in May, and will showcase their result during the Demo Day.

360-degree video camera

Companies such as Samsung, Kodak, and Panasonic are among the larger companies entering in the market for 360 videos and photos. Samsung after their recently partnership with Oculus to release the first ever consumer virtual reality goggle, has also announced that they will be release a 360 degree camera, Project Beyond, that captures content for the virtual world.

 

 

Panasonic will be demonstrating a cost effective security solution at Intersec 2015, releasing the launch of their 4K security camera at the show. The 360 camera system can capture finer and wider details providing greater coverage with fewer cameras, as opposed to traditional security camera system. This camera system can serve multiple verticals such as banking, retail, and logistics.

 

Kodak is returning to CES this year for the first time in three years where they will be showcasing a ground-breaking 360-degree action video camera.

 

 

Bublcam is another startup company recently recognized as one of the top 10 up-and-coming technology companies at the 4th annual Vision to Reality Awards event held by PWC in Canada. Bubl delivers a 360-degree panoramic spherical camera that comes with their own software. User can look up, down and in every direction to interact with the content they have generated.

 

Engineering application:

VuePod is a 3-D immersive visualization environment run by their civil and environmental engineering department at Brigham Young University. Their technology is changing the way earthquake engineers view environmental engineering challenges.

 

The point data are collect via laser scanning by a drone, and the photographs stitched together can generate million of data points that can be viewed as a single image. The VuePod allows the viewer to virtually hover in the 3D environment through virtual nevigation.

 

In natural change detection, the VuePod technology can be used for infrastructure monitoring, such as examining the aftermath after severe weather or earthquake for buildings. The goal for BYU is to make the technology affordable for engineering firm to use. VuePod system can be purchased for $30,000 USD, as oppose some other systems on the market that may cost millions.

 

Chevrolet integrates virtual reality technology

The prototyping process can potential cost companies a fortune. Chevrolet integrates virtual reality technologies to craft optimal experience before spending money to develop a car. Chevy’s 24-foot “PowerWall” screen has more pixels than an IMAX theater, providing ultra-fine resolution that simulates manufactured state, rendering the data so designers and engineers perform virtual design and visualization prior to actually building a car.

 

 

“Using various advanced technologies, we were able to make dimensional and design modifications in a virtual environment before locking down on a final architecture,” says Crystal Windham, director for Chevrolet passenger car interior design.

 

Additional Resources:

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/oculus-doesnt-need-killer-app/

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2014/12/3-d-virtual-reality-powerful-enough-gamer-made-engineer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmzUrklyCDg

 

Author: VR Reporter

I am a hi-tech enthusiast, VR evangelist, and a Co-founder & Chief Director at Virtual Reality Reporter!

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