Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) solutions are often regarded as incomplete when we talk about their application in the commercial space. Surely, you must have heard of the one big retail store that has a VR app experience so that you can try stuff out in VR before purchasing them. However, that doesn’t always work so well since there’s no real feedback or feel of the products you are experiencing.
Though, London-based startup Hyper has come up with an innovative Mixed Reality (MR) co-design platform that serves as a solution to the bottleneck. Born from the EIT Digital-supported “HyperCRC” innovation activity, Hyper has introduced a spatial design platform, which is successfully able to merge VR with physically real, motion-tracked models.
Saving time, money and materials
Prototyping is arguably one of the most important processes in any product’s lifecycle. it is necessary to go through numerous iterations before arriving at a product that is as per customer’s requirements. However, this can take up immense time, capital and materials, which leads to increased wastage. With Hyper’s solution, the efficiency of the prototyping stage can be considerably increased.
The company has already demonstrated and proven its solutions to the Thales Group, which is a French multinational company. Thales has a big presence in the UK and it designs manufactures electrical systems, and provides services for defence, transportation, aerospace, and security markets.
How is Hyper unique?
As mentioned above, Hyper offers a spatial design platform that mixes VR with motion-tracked models that are real. The company has a standard design package, which enables customers to switch between 40 kinds of materials and customise four objects, within four immersive 3D environments. Furthermore, the technology enables the company’s clients to collaborate and co-design remotely.
Another notable bit is that Virgin Galactic is mentoring Hyper via workshops and demonstrator testing. The startup’s mixed reality co-design platform could even be used to help design future spaceports.
How does it work?
At the EIT Digital Conference that took place in early September this year, Hyper gave a demo of its tech to users. With a VR headset and real airplane seat, the users were transported into the VR space of fuselage of a plane where they could touch the seat in front, move their seat, unfold the tray table for accessing a hidden control interface and perform more actions. In addition, using Mixed Reality programming the company is able to use gestures to change the virtual space.
For example, touching different materials on the upholstery of the seat in front, the ‘patch selector’ tool enabled users to observe changing the colour of the chair’s material. These changes are carried over to all the chairs in the virtual cabin and viewing changes in materials with varying lighting conditions is also possible. Virtual controls make it possible to switch the VR space’s lighting from day to night-time, change seat spacing and much more.
“HYPER opens new senses to the immersive design process. We can now 3D print mock versions of complex interiors and use them to make important choices for the retail, automotive and space travel experiences of tomorrow. Digitally enhanced retail spaces, self-driving car interiors and aerospace simulations can now be designed and hyper customised for customers and clients, using HYPER,” the startup’s co-founders Nathan Sparshott, Gareth Southall and Yates Buckley said.
Image credits: Hyper
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