Virtual Reality by Samuel Greengard

Author:Samuel Greengard
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Extended reality; virtual reality; augmented reality; mixed reality; XR; VR; AR; MR; virtual reality continuum; immersive multimedia; computer generated; immersive; 3D world; head-mounted display; HMD; AR glasses; smart glasses; smart eyeglasses; goggles; heads-up display; HUD; virtual retina display; VRD; haptics; head-tracking; eye-tracking; field of view; FOV; VR apps; AR apps; VR software; AR software; Wearable computing
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2019-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

Training and Career Development

An enormous challenge for businesses of all shapes and sizes is training employees. In the United States alone, companies spend upward of $70 billion annually.6 It’s no secret that skills change rapidly. Critical knowledge a few years ago is now out-of-date. What’s more, as digital technologies become more pervasive in all industries and lines of work, there’s a growing need to learn new skills. Although online training has revolutionized the way many workers update their skills and knowledge, it has never delivered the realism of assembling a jet engine, mastering a sales technique, or installing a flow control valve at a nuclear power plant.

Augmented reality presents opportunities to enhance training by putting manuals, technical specs, and other data on glasses or lenses as a person learns or performs work. Virtual reality reduces, if not eliminates, the risks associated with many types of training. It’s possible to be prepared to walk into a structure that’s on fire or deal with terrorists holding a hostage before stepping into a real-world situation. Moreover, individuals gain important skills before working with valuable equipment or supplies. The fact that VR removes the need for physical classrooms and transporting people to a specific spot at a specific time is no less appealing.

One company that understands the value of XR is British aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce Holdings. It has turned to virtual reality for far better results in manufacturing.7 Rolls-Royce uses the technology to teach workers how to assemble critical components in jet engines used on aircraft. A worker dons a VR headset and then steps through the entire process of placing specific components and parts in a gearbox. If the technician makes a mistake, the system issues a warning and forces the technician to start over. Once a worker learns the right sequence and placement for parts, it’s time to move on to the actual assembly station and work with actual engines.

There’s also the ability to hold conferences and symposiums in virtual worlds and mixed-reality spaces. Accenture is developing a teleportation system that allows participants to view a virtual representation of a speaker, view avatars for other participants as they ask questions, and virtually walk through spaces and view booths and exhibits that are part of the physical world. “As bandwidth has improved, video quality has gotten better, and digital technologies have connected to one another, we have advanced online meetings from simply connecting to other people to more advanced telepresence and now virtual and augmented realities,” explains Emmanuel Viale, a managing director at Accenture Labs.

In fact, Viale and a team of researchers are designing the conference room of the future from a lab in the south of France. They have combined scanned and mapped 3D models of physical things—walls, spaces, and objects—with immersive virtual spaces so that 10, 20, or more people can congregate to view presentations, watch videos, listen to lectures, ask questions, and interact. Everything—video, audio, avatars, and movements in the space—are synced in real time. There is also an element of augmented reality within the virtual-reality environment.

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