Software/Apps

Unity Reflect adds Navisworks integration to enable BIM coordination

New Unity Reflect release adds Navisworks support, project sharing through cloud, and improved navigation and visuals.

We created Unity Reflect to empower the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry to create highly customizable real-time 3D experiences in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) on an array of devices.

Today, Unity is being used across the entire building lifecycle, from design to preconstruction, to the job site and beyond. Unity Reflect makes it easier to personalize your workflow. Last year, we launched Unity Reflect with support for Autodesk Revit as part of our strategic collaboration with Autodesk to enable real-time BIM for designers and engineers. In March, we expanded support for more design tools and platforms, including SketchUp, Rhino, and Android.

Now, Unity Reflect adds support for Navisworks, enabling the use of Unity Reflect for BIM coordination. In this release, we concentrated on enhancing the user experience and making collaboration in real-time 3D accessible for non-developers, such as designers, building owners, and contractors. We also improved the Unity Reflect Viewer to enable you to send projects to as many clients and collaborators as you want for free, meaning everyone has access to BIM data that they can understand!

BIM coordination with Navisworks

We launched Unity Reflect with integration for Autodesk Revit to enable designers and engineers to transfer Revit models into real-time 3D experiences, including in AR and VR. To expand on our partnership with Autodesk, we’re excited to announce that Unity Reflect’s metadata support now extends to Navisworks, the most popular software to bring design and BIM data to coordination and the field.

Navisworks improves project reviews and BIM coordination by combining design and construction data into a single model, identifying and resolving clash and interference problems before construction, and aggregating data from multiple trades to better control outcomes.

By integrating with Unity Reflect, AEC companies can improve BIM coordination, visualize design clashes, and better coordinate engineering reviews. Unity Reflect supports Navisworks 2019, 2020, and 2021.

For details about our Navisworks integration, have a look at our documentation page.

Improved visual fidelity and viewer navigation

Real-time 3D enables companies to experience an environment before it exists, train without physical constraints, and iterate across teams before the concrete is poured. We’ve added enhanced visual quality, multithreading for faster model loading on mobile, and improved navigation to allow users to easily move around a scene.

Less development work required

You now have more flexibility to customize settings for better visual fidelity, meaning less development on your end. Improvements include post-effects adjustments, slight Bloom increase, glass transparency, light reflections, Sun Study tool, Tonemapping set to Academy Color Encoding System (ACES), and activated Screen Space Reflection.

Greater customization flexibility with Unity Editor tools

Workflow improvements allow Unity Reflect users to switch between Built-in, Universal Render Pipelines (URP), and High Definition Render Pipelines (HDRP) in the Unity Editor to allow for higher visual fidelity and greater customization.

Improved navigation for ease of use

We’ve added navigation features such as teleport mode, 2-finger drag, and easy-model reset to make gestures and model interactions more intuitive on any device, including iOS, Android, PC, and now Mac.

Cloud hosting (Beta)

The cloud hosting Beta is available to all Unity Reflect users. You now have the option to host projects on-premise or in the cloud, allowing you to push data to mobile devices and share models with users outside of your network. We are launching this as a Beta so we can make it as scalable and robust as possible to ensure reliability for real-world use cases.

Improvements and support for existing plug-ins

The new release of Unity Reflect is packed full of requested improvements on the overall user experience. This Includes a new Unity Reflect Dashboard that allows you to monitor export progress and manage projects and servers. In addition to supporting Navisworks 2019, 2020, and 2021, we’ve added additional support for existing integrations, including Revit 2021 and SketchUp 2020.

Quelle:

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2020/06/24/unity-reflect-adds-navisworks-integration-to-enable-bim-coordination/

10. Juli 2020 0 comment

Knowledge Software/Apps

Facebook’s AI Supersampling Will Boost Rendering In VR

Facebook has developed an AI-assisted method for supersampling real-time rendered content, something that could become an integral addition to games coming to future generations of high-resolution VR headsets.

There’s an ongoing arms race between display technology and GPUs, and adding VR into the mix only underscores the disparity. It’s not so much a question of putting higher-resolution displays in VR headsets; those panels are out there, and there’s a reason many manufacturers aren’t throwing in the latest and greatest in their headsets. It’s really more about hitting a smart balance between the display resolution and the end user’s ability to adequately render that VR content and have it look good. That’s the basics anyway.

That’s why Facebook is researching AI-assisted supersampling in a recently published paper, dubbed ‘Neural Supersampling for Real-time Rendering’. Using neural networks, Facebook researchers have developed a system capable of inputting low-resolution images and obtaining high-resolution output suitable for real-time rendering. This, they say, restores sharp details while saving computational overhead.

Researchers claim the approach is “the first learned supersampling method that achieves significant 16x supersampling of rendered content with high spatial and temporal fidelity, outperforming prior work by a large margin.”

From the paper:

“To reduce the rendering cost for high-resolution displays, our method works from an input image that has 16 times fewer pixels than the desired output. For example, if the target display has a resolution of 3840×2160, then our network starts with a 960×540 input image rendered by game engines, and upsamples it to the target display resolution as a post-process in real-time.”

If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a similar concept to Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which is currently only available on its RTX GPUs.

Facebook researchers say that methods like DLSS however either introduces “obvious visual artifacts into the upsampled images, especially at upsampling ratios higher than 2 × 2, or rely on proprietary technologies and/or hardware that may be unavailable on all platforms.”

Moreover, Facebook’s Neural Supersampling approach is said to be easily integrated into modern game engines, requires no special hardware or software such as proprietary drivers (like with DLSS). It’s also designed to be compatible with a wider array of software platforms, acceleration hardware and displays.

Oculus Varifocal Prototypes, Image courtesy Oculus

It’s admittedly a difficult problem to address, and Facebook says there still needs to be more brains working on the issue to bring it to fruition, so we may not see it for some time, at least not direct from Facebook.

“This work points toward a future for high-resolution VR that isn’t just about the displays, but also the algorithms required to practically drive them,” the researchers conclude.

This, combined with a number of technologies such as foveated rendering, may bring the generational leap developers are looking for, and truly give VR games an undeniable edge in the visual department. VR games are often maligned for their lower-quality graphics, something will hopefully soon be an anachronism as we approach an era of photorealistic virtual reality.

If you’re looking for a deeper dive into Facebook’s machine-learning supersampling method, check out the full paper here, which is slated to be presented at SIGGRAPH 2020 this summer.

Quelle:

https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/tech/facebooks-ai-supersampling-will-boost-rendering-vr

9. Juli 2020 0 comment

Knowledge Software/Apps

You Can Now Change Quest’s Guardian Boundary Color

Oculus Quest’s Guardian boundary can now be changed to yellow or purple, if you’re not a fan of the default blue.

This feature was announced back in mid-May. Six weeks later it’s now “rolling out” as part of the system software v18 update.

To change the Oculus Quest Guardian color, just navigate to the Guardian tab.

This isn’t the only update we’ve seen to Guardian recently. Since May, it can now detect objects in your playspace when you first put the headset on in a play session. We’ve even noticed it detecting dogs & cats. It can’t yet warn about these while in VR, however.

The PC-based Oculus Rift S also features the Guardian system, and uses the same versioning system. However, color options are not available on Rift S software v18. Valve’s SteamVR offers a wide variety of colors for ‘Chaperone’, its competing system.

Quelle:

https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/tech/you-can-now-change-quests-guardian-boundary-color

8. Juli 2020 0 comment

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Styly’s Latest Update Adds AR Content Creation Tools

Towards the end of 2019, Psychic VR Lab launched a new mobile app under its Styly brand which allowed you to view various artworks in augmented reality (AR). At the time the studio also noted plans to enable AR content creation at some point during 2020. That update has now arrived.

To build an AR experience you use Styly Studio, the same web-based software that Psychic VR Lab launched a couple of years ago for virtual reality (VR) content creation. The update allows you to select between AR and VR templates and then go about creating your scene without any programming knowledge to publish on mobiles and tablets.

Designed to be easy to use, Styly features a drag and drop editor to get you started whilst more advanced creators can import content from 3D modeling software such as MAYA or Blender as well as digital material from YouTube, SoundCloud, and Instagram.

Once the AR experience has been created there are a couple of ways it can be published and viewed. The easiest is directly through the Styly mobile app which is compatible with iOS and Android devices where users can search for scenes. The other method is via Styly markers (QR codes). Once your AR content is published, STYLY markers are automatically issued. These can then be scanned by the app to view the content. This is a great way for artists to showcase their work by printing the markers and placing them in locations like a gallery.

All the software under the Styly banner is free to use, Psychic VR Lab even created the NEWVIEW Awards to help showcase and celebrate artists work.

The studio has also added several other improvements to the software including a non-WebGL screen so users can view and configure scenes quickly.

Quelle:

Styly’s Latest Update Adds AR Content Creation Tools

7. Juli 2020 0 comment

Knowledge Software/Apps

XR Platform Verizon Media Immersive to Provide Next-Gen Media Experiences

American telecommunications giant Verizon has dabbled in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) technology for a while now. This week subsidiary Verizon Media has announced a new XR suite designed to aid the future of advertising and content utilising 5G called Verizon Media Immersive (VMI).

The online XR platform will enable partners, advertisers and Verizon Media’s portfolio of brands – which include Yahoo, HuffPost and TechCrunch – to enhance how consumers engage with their content, commerce and advertising.

Verizon Media Immersive will provide authoring tools, a content library and search and e-commerce to partners to help encourage the creation, distribution and monetization of emerging XR formats. As the platform utilises a WebXR toolset when companies create an experience with VMI end users can engage with the content directly through a browser, rather having to download a separate app.

“The launch of Verizon Media Immersive unlocks new opportunities for our partners and advertisers by providing the latest AR and VR capabilities to help them connect and engage with consumers in a more impactful and interactive way,” said Guru Gowrappan, CEO, Verizon Media in a statement. “Leveraging Verizon Media’s ecosystem, technology and Verizon’s 5G network give us the ability to create a scaled XR experience like no other.”

To demonstrate this a new 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E experience for Autoblog was created where you can view a 3D model online, or using your smartphone’s camera place the model in the real world. It’s this kind of interactive content VMI aims to accelerate.

Advertisers will be able to benefit as they look to merge physical products with the digital world. Verizon Media Immersive’s formats work directly with the Verizon Media Ad Platform, delivering immersive campaigns across articles, search, affiliate, commerce, and branded content, whilst providing performance tracking analytics.

Verizon Media has been able to start rolling this out thanks to 5G technology being able to deliver the vast amount of data VR and AR needs.

Quelle:

XR Platform Verizon Media Immersive to Provide Next-Gen Media Experiences

6. Juli 2020 0 comment

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Creating Family Memories From Across The Globe With The Alcove VR App

Travel the Earth, share family photos, and play games with loved ones of all ages in this unique social VR experience.

Connecting with family isn’t always easy, especially in today’s climate. The global outbreak of COVID-19 has led to the government-mandated lockdowns around the world, separating countless families, friends, and loved ones in the process. Now more than ever we find ourselves in desperate need of human connection. This is where Alcove comes in.

Available free on Facebook’s Oculus Go VR headset, AARP Innovation Labs’ Alcove is a brand new social platform that allows up to four loved ones to connect in VR for some good old-fashioned family time. Only instead of sitting down in the den, friends and siblings connect via their own virtual home where they can participate in a wide variety of interactive games and experiences perfect for users of all ages.

Upload family photos, both 2D and 360-degree, and sit down for a next-gen slideshow; meet up and explore the Swiss Alps from the comfort of a flying hot air balloon; participate in immersive mediation and a variety of brain-building activities; customize your virtual home with family photos; or kick back and enjoy some compelling AARP TV, articles, and documentaries. You can even upload your own videos and host a virtual screening of your favorite home movies.

Each room of your virtual home features new gateways to explore. By selecting the world map, for instance, you can teleport to exotic locations around the globe, from Tokyo and Rome to Vienna and Prague. Or you can just head to the living room for a game of checkers.

Alcove is more than just a social VR platform, however. The app is designed to combat social isolation by allowing friends and families members to connect in a more intimate way, regardless of age. As a result, many of the activities and features included as part of Alcove have been tailor-made for more seasoned users who may be less comfortable with VR technology. This includes a handful of health & wellness applications ranging from therapeutic exercises to cognitive training games, each of which aimed at keeping your brain active and sharp.

Whereas the rapid development of modern technology can often drive a wedge between the different generations, Alcove represents a rare opportunity to bridge us together, offering a virtual “middle ground” of sorts that resonates with all ages. It’s not often you come across a VR experience capable of pleasing both the grandkids as well as the grandparents, which is exactly what makes Alcove such an effective platform.

The Alcove beta is available free via the Oculus Go, Facebook’s 3DoF standalone headset. Still in it’s early stage, users can expect a regular series of updates as AARP Innovation Labs continues to introduce new content in the form of additional experiences and features.

For more information on Alcove and its many use-cases, visit alcovevr.com.

Quelle:

Creating Family Memories From Across The Globe With The Alcove VR App

Image Credit: AARP Innovation Labs

6. Juli 2020 0 comment

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Mozilla veröffentlicht WebXR Viewer 2.0 für Apple iOS

Mozilla hat den WebXR Viewer 2.0 für Apple iOS veröffentlicht. Es handelt sich dabei um eine komplette Neuentwicklung des Betrachters für Mixed Reality-Inhalte mit vielen Neuerungen. Der Mozilla WebXR Viewer ist der erste Browser, welcher die WebXR Device API auf Apple iOS implementiert.

Download Mozilla WebXR Viewer für Apple iOS

Unter der Bezeichnung WebXR werden Virtuelle Realität (VR) und Augmented Reality (AR) in einem gemeinsamen Standard für das Web zusammengefasst.

Gegenüber der vor ca. einem Jahr veröffentlichten Version 1.17 handelt es sich beim WebXR Viewer 2.0 um eine vollständige Neuentwicklung auf Grundlage der Code-Basis von Firefox für iOS und aktualisierter JavaScript-Engine, um die WebXR Device API zu unterstützen, einschließlich einer Auswahl von bereits befürworteten und vorgeschlagenen neuen AR-Features. Der WebXR Viewer 2.0 von Mozilla ist der erste Browser für Apple iOS, welcher die neue WebXR Device API implementiert.

Ein wesentlicher Vorteil der neuen Code-Basis ist, dass der WebXR Viewer nun ein vollwertiger Browser mit vertrauter Benutzeroberfläche und bekannten Features ist, darunter Tabs, Chronik, Privater Modus sowie die Möglichkeit, Daten via Firefox Sync zwischen verschiedenen Geräten zu synchronisieren.

Quelle:

https://www.soeren-hentzschel.at/virtuelle-realitaet/webxr-viewer-2-apple-ios/

6. Juli 2020 0 comment

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‘Bigscreen’ Now Lets You Watch Your Own Video Files on All Supported Platforms By Scott Hayden

Bigscreen today released an update that brings to the social VR viewing platform a video player that lets you watch your own video files. Yes, even on Oculus Quest.

Bigscreen’s new video player lets you watch your own files alone, or with friends—provided they have the same file stored on their local machine. If your friends do happen to have the same file, Bigscreen automatically syncs everyone in the room so you can watch it together.

Exactly how you obtain those files is up to you; the new update is only a video player and not a file sharing service per se.

Bigscreen’s video player supports both 2D and 3D movies (side-by-side and over-under), and is said to support most of the common file types. At the time of this writing, the video player doesn’t support 180/360 content, or DLNA/Plex, although it’s currently being considered for a future update.

You’ll find the video player there starting today; it works cross-platform across all supported headsets, including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, HTC Vive, and all SteamVR-compatible headsets.

The social VR platform already has robust support for screen sharing, which is accomplished by mirroring the desktop of a host user to anyone in the room. With the recent inclusion of more direct streaming services, which includes both TV and movies, Bigscreen offered up a big slice of functionality to users on standalone headsets like Quest or Go, as well as to users without access to their own premium streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.

Today’s update, while offering a comparatively basic feature, actually puts Bigscreen in a better position to not only compete as a virtual desktop solution (more than it already is), but also to further fill the gaps that platform holders are leaving with their own lackluster native offerings.

There is another side to it, although it remains to be seen whether the worry is founded in reality or if it’s simple speculation at this point—anyway, insert grain of salt here. Bigscreen’s continued deals with movie studios and streaming services may put it in the position at some point in the future to somehow limit the screensharing aspect of its business on PC platform, as individual users can easily stream more movies than they could ever license for their paid (and free) movie viewings. The video player, for ill or good, may be a way for Bigscreen PC VR users to have their cake and eat it too should that particular shoe ever drop—putting the onus on the individual to share files instead of simply mirroring their monitor for all to freely view. Again, that’s a small slice of speculation for the old brainpan.

In any case, the next set of features on the agenda definitely sound exciting: a Bigscreen Friends system, more new environments, a redesigned avatar system, built-in YouTube and TV channels into rooms, and more movie studio partnerships to host 3D movie screenings.

Quelle:

‘Bigscreen’ Now Lets You Watch Your Own Video Files on All Supported Platforms

2. Juli 2020 0 comment

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Google ARCore Depth API Now Available, Letting Devs Make AR More Realistic

Making depth maps possible with a single RBG camera.

ARCore, Google’s developer platform for building augmented reality experiences for mobile devices, just got an update that brings the company’s previously announced Depth API to Android and Unity developers. Depth API not only lets mobile devices create depth maps using a single RGB camera, but also aims to make the AR experience more natural, as virtual imagery is more realistically placed in the world.

Update (June 25th, 2020): Google today announced it’s making its Depth API for ARCore available to developers. A few studios have already integrated Depth API into their apps to create more convincing occlusion, such as Illumix’s Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery game, which lets enemies hide behind your real-world objects for more startling jump scares.

ARCore 1.18 for Android and Unity, including AR Foundation, is rolling out to what Google calls “hundreds of millions of compatible Android devices,” although there’s no clear list of which devices are supported just yet.

Original Article (December 9th, 2019): Shahram Izadi, Director of Research and Engineering at Google, says in a blog post the new Depth API now enables occlusion for mobile AR applications, and also the chance of creating more realistic physics and surface interactions.

To demonstrate, Google created a number of demos to shows off the full set of capabilities the new Depth API brings to ARCore. Keep an eye on the virtual objects as they’re accurately occluded by physical barriers.

“The ARCore Depth API allows developers to use our depth-from-motion algorithms to create a depth map using a single RGB camera,” Izadi says. “The depth map is created by taking multiple images from different angles and comparing them as you move your phone to estimate the distance to every pixel.”

Full-fledged AR headsets typically use multiple depth sensors to create depth maps like this, which Google says was created on device with a single sensors. Here, red indicates areas that closer, while blue is for farther areas:

“One important application for depth is occlusion: the ability for digital objects to accurately appear in front of or behind real world objects,” Izadi explains. “Occlusion helps digital objects feel as if they are actually in your space by blending them with the scene. We will begin making occlusion available in Scene Viewer, the developer tool that powers AR in Search, to an initial set of over 200 million ARCore-enabled Android devices today.”

Additionally, Izadi says Depth API does’t require specialized cameras and sensors, and that with the addition of time-of-flight (ToF) sensors to future mobile devices, ARCore’s depth mapping capabilities could eventually allow for virtual objects to occlude behind moving, physical objects.

The new Depth API follows Google’s release of its ‘Environmental HDR’ tool back at Google I/O in May, which brought more realistic lighting to AR objects and scenes, something which aims at enhancing immersion with more realistic reflections, shadows, and lighting.

Update (12:10): In a previous version of this article, it was claimed that Google was releasing Depth API today, however the company is only now putting out a form for developers interested in using the tool. You can sign up here.

Quelle:

Google ARCore Depth API Now Available, Letting Devs Make AR More Realistic

1. Juli 2020 0 comment

Knowledge Software/Apps

AltSpaceVR Gets An Improved Avatar System

In 2017 Microsoft purchased AltspaceVR, one of the pioneers in immersive communications. A bit like Second Life, AltspaceVR is a social platform for virtual reality. The service brings people together in virtual reality from over 160 countries to attend meetups, comedy shows, yoga classes, dance parties, and large-scale events hosted by NBC, Reggie Watts, Justin Roiland, Drew Carey and more.

Surprisingly, as a social platform, the app did not support custom Avatars, but that is about to change.

AltspaceVR says as their community grew, it became increasingly important that individuals seeking a new way to connect, share, and explore feel comfortable, welcome, and represented. Due to this, the team set out to build new avatars that prioritized customization and empowered authentic self-expression.

AltspaceVR says their new avatar system was built on a wide variety of “connective pieces” that unlock imaginative combinations. The new avatars give individuals the freedom to choose how they define and express things like gender or race, for example. With the new avatars, users will have access to every accessory, every body shape, and even a palette of alternative skin tones like blue or pink. They’ll be able to construct the version of themselves that will make them feel comfortable and safe, as well as allow them the freedom to explore their own curiosities around identity. Additionally, this “building block” approach to avatar selection is highly scalable and will give us the ability to continue to expand options well into the future.

Despite this customizability, each avatar is still rendered in AltspaceVR’s signature art style, so while each individual avatar can differ greatly from the next, in a crowd of avatars there is a comfortable uniformity and familiarity.

The company also put much thought and consideration into features like reactive eye-movements and expressive mouth movements. Two avatars engaged in conversation will lock eyes, blink, and gesture to one another.

AltspaceVR is gathering feedback regarding the change, which can be delivered here.

If you have a VR headset you can join the community via the app in the Store here.

Quelle:

https://www.vrroom.buzz/vr-news/social-xr/altspacevr-gets-improved-avatar-system

1. Juli 2020 0 comment