In Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality News
June 24, 2021 – Varjo, a provider of industrial-grade virtual/extended reality (VR/XR) hardware and software, has today announced a pioneering new reality with the introduction of ‘Varjo Reality Cloud’. The new platform will enable “virtual teleportation” by allowing anybody to 3D scan their surroundings using a Varjo XR-3 headset and transport another person to that same exact physical reality, completely bridging the real and the virtual worlds in true-to-life visual fidelity. The company anticipates that its new real-time reality sharing solution will help to usher in a new era in universal collaboration and pave the way for a “metaverse of the future”, transforming the way people work, interact, and play.
“We believe that Varjo’s vision for the metaverse will elevate humanity during the next decade more than any other technology in the world,” said Timo Toikkanen, CEO of Varjo. “What we’re building with our vision for the Varjo Reality Cloud will release our physical reality from the laws of physics. The programmable world that once existed only behind our screens can now merge with our surrounding reality – forever changing the choreography of everyday life.”
For the past five years, Varjo has been building and perfecting the foundational technologies needed to bring its Varjo Reality Cloud platform to market, such as human-eye resolution, low-latency video pass-through, integrated eye tracking and the LiDAR ability of the company’s mixed reality (MR) headset. As Varjo has successfully delivered these building block technologies in market-ready products, the company is uniquely positioned to combine them with Varjo Reality Cloud to empower users to enjoy the scale and flexibility of virtual computing in the cloud.
Using Varjo’s proprietary foveated transport algorithm, users will be able to stream a real-time human-eye resolution, wide-field-of-view 3D video feed in single megabytes per second to any device. This ability to share, collaborate in and edit a user’s immediate environment with other people will help to eliminate the restrictions of time and place completely, according to the company.
To further accelerate bringing the vision for Varjo Reality Cloud to life, Varjo has also announced today the acquisition of Dimension10, a Norwegian software company that provides industrial collaboration solutions for users interacting with 3D / BIM models. Dimension10’s virtual meeting suite is designed for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) teams and will become a critical component to making virtual collaboration possible within Varjo Reality Cloud, according to Varjo.
Additionally, Varjo has welcomed Lincoln Wallen to the company’s board of directors. Wallen currently serves as the CTO at Improbable and brings to Varjo an extensive knowledge of large scale cloud computing, and moving digital content production into the cloud. Previously, Wallen has worked as CTO of Dreamworks where he transitioned global movie production to the cloud, including the development of a cloud-native toolset for asset management, rendering, lighting, and animation.
The above video shows a simplification of how the world can be captured and streamed in real time as a 3D representation. External viewpoint video of real-time capture from a Varjo XR-3 headset, showing how Varjo Reality Cloud sees the world around the user. The world is of course typically experienced inside the space on an immersive headset like Varjo VR-3.
Varjo Reality Cloud will be first available to existing customers and partners in Alpha Access starting later this year. For more information about Varjo’s new cloud platform and its vision for the metaverse, the company will be hosting a live, virtual event today, June 24, 2021, at 12:00pm ET via the company’s website.
Image credit: Varjo
About the author
Sam Sprigg
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.
