In a Financial Times article, VR has been shown to be involved in planning decisions with the City of London Corporation, in a collaboration with New London Architecture, Innovate UK, and VU.CITY. Using VR, the project has captured detail in a nearly 3kn square area to a 2cm accuracy, a first for an area of this size. According to Alastair Moss, Chair of the Planning and Transportation Committee at the City of London Corporation, VR technology will highlight the benefit of planning in regards to space and enhancement of the city. VR planning will offer more advanced urban planning solutions.

Other VR, AR, and MR research reports conducted by IDTechEx include ‘Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality 2020-2030’, and the analysis ‘Optics and Displays in AR, VR and MR 2020-2030: Technologies, Players and Markets’, which provide insights into the future of wearable technology. Over 100 products and 80 companies are reviewed within the former report, providing conclusions about the market future. The latter report offers further detail into optics and display features of the innovative technologies.

Key questions addressed in the reports include:

• What are the major drivers in VR/AR/MR adoption?
• What are the major drivers for optic or display choice in a VR/AR/MR device?
• Which use cases benefit the most from VR/AR/MR technology?
• How will VR/AR/MR sales evolve in the next decade?
• What are the drivers behind future growth?

COVID-19 has shifted more attention onto VR and AR products due to its interactive, hands-free nature, and this focus is expected to remain. The increase of funding and adoption of VR, AR, and MR (Mixed Reality) in the past decade is anticipated to continue into the next decade. Many industries will be affected by the market, due to its result of increased innovation.

Read the full article here, and the full research report by IDTechEx here.

The strategic alliance between Magic Leap and PTC was announced in 2019, but now PTC is planning to implement its Vuforia Augmented Reality Enterprise Suite with Magic Leap’s Spatial Computing platform. The Vuforia AR Enterprise Suite offers easy, fast, advanced AR solutions, which reduces costs, increases workforce safety and efficiency, and improves customer experiences. With the Magic Leap combination, the technology provides some of the highest industrial quality solutions to improve performance and boost productivity.

The Vuforia AR Enterprise Suite includes the following capabilities:

• Vuforia Chalk™
• Vuforia Expert Capture™
• Vuforia Studio™
• Vuforia Engine™
• Vuforia Spatial Toolbox™

AR adoption has been accelerated due to COVID-19 across a range of industries, as organisations had to quickly adapt to remote operations. Magic Leap’s Spatial Computing is able to optimise factories by giving front line workers more control over their physical environment, according to leading IoT specialists. Industry experts can remotely access the shop floor, interfacing more with the production line. Engineers, designers, programmers, and managers all benefit from the technology via increased productivity, closer collaboration, and improved workflow.

Global leading industrial enterprises integrating AR and Spatial Computing such as Magic Leap 1 can achieve:

• Up to 40% improvement in new hire productivity
• Up to 50% reduction in training costs
• Up to 30% acceleration in sales cycles
• Up to 30% improvement in first time fix rate
• Up to 25% reduction in rework and scrap costs

One example of a company that has benefited from the Magic Leap and PTC partnership is Jabil Inc., a global manufacturing organisation that provides design capabilities, manufacturing knowledge, market experience, product management expertise, and supply chain insights to leading brands. Due to the fusion of Vuforia and Spatial Computing, Jabil can support front line workers remotely with AR training and equipment information. Soon, they will be able to develop digital work instructions for maintenance.

See Magic Leap’s AREA member profile here, and PTC’s profile here.

Read the full article here.

Before COVID-19, specialists from the Pinhais facility would have to make 1500 mile trips to the Camaçari plant for product development monitoring. The Smart Glasses have enabled specialists to remotely provide support to factory operators during production. The operators receive expert video and audio support while remaining hands-free. A reduction in travel time allows for greater productivity while also reducing carbon footprint.

Paulo Roseiro, Research and Development Director at Boticário Group, has said that the company is utilising many ways of meeting needs, producing quality, and maintaining safety, one being their deployment of Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses. President and CEO of Vuzix, Paul Travers, has also said that their Smart Glasses continue to reduce costs, increase safety, and improve product quality across the globe.

Read the full article here, and see Vuzix’s AREA member profile here.

The Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Silicon Valley developed the AR software. It provides a digital overlay consisting of essential information about a vehicle’s mission, flight patterns, etc., bringing awareness about the local airspace to people such as local public officials, airspace operators, and emergency responders. This is vital for safety reasons and to form communications with local communities as more unconventional aircraft integrate.

AR leverages the capabilities of the Microsoft HoloLens to visualise data in the physical world, helping air traffic management occur in a far more interactive way than has been done previously. In addition to headsets, AR can also be used on smartphones.

NASA’s future in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), which is aiming towards developing air transportations systems that transport people and cargo between aviation-underserved places, will benefit greatly from AR. The technology addresses challenges with uncrewed vehicles; with smaller uncrewed aircraft in urban environments, AR enables ground researchers to help test air traffic management systems by projecting interactive data overlays onto the real world.

During NASA’s final Technical Capability Level demonstration of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management project, the AR software underwent field evaluation. Joey Mercer, a researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Silicon Valley, is quoted to have said that AR is a great tool for safely incorporating uncrewed aircraft into complex airspaces. In making automatic traffic system and uncrewed aircraft information accessible and visible, AR is changing how our skies are managed.

Read the full article here.

Gartner reported that from 2016 to 2018, the number of IoT devices increased from 6 billion to 11 billion, and is expected to reach 20 billion by the end of this year. With the advancement of IoT, companies can use these platforms to collect large amounts of data to monitor industrial performance. Each stage of production provides the following information:

• Status Data: a manufacturing robot is working
• Location Data: the position of a product in the production line
• Automation Data: the temperature as regulated by a sensor

AR converts IoT data into relevant information for employees, supporting operation, maintenance, and performance. This increases efficiency and reduces error rates, making optimal use of limited skilled workers. AR leverages “dynamic data” such as:

• Warning signals
• Capacity indicators
• RPM readings
• Temperature readings

The article discusses two industrial use cases for AR: medical device manufacturing and pharmaceutical production, and assembly line in industrial manufacturing. In the first use case, AR can visualise dynamic data such as air filtration or room temperature in the operator’s field of view, using a mobile device or smart glasses. This visualisation allows the medical operator to:

• Monitor changes – the impact that an adjustment has is immediately visible
• Take action immediately – as problems occur, they can be addressed
• Forsee problems before they occur – issues can be avoided in advance

In the second use case, errors can be extremely costly, as even a minute of downtime costs up to $22,000 in the automotive industry. An AR data display therefore helps manufacturing workers with:

• Diagnosing errors – the nature and location of malfunctions on machines are immediately visible
• Performing maintenance and repair – having relevant information in direct view makes equipment servicing and fixing errors easier
• Equipment monitoring – values are shown at the machine instead of on complex dashboards

The article concludes by recognising that combining AR and IoT maximises their potential. A BCG survey has revealed that 80% of businesses already working with either AR or IoT believe that combined solutions will become widespread in their industry in coming years.

Read the full article here, and see RE’FLEKT’s AREA member profile here.

Aspects of industrial work that AR digital twins improve include:

• Planning
• Inspections
• Maintenance
• Product development
• Customer visualisation
• Remote work

The Arvizio XR Platform allows digital twins to be visualised at either table-top or life-size level. It further supports remote 3D collaboration via an expansive variety of XR devices such as:

• Magic Leap
• HoloLens 2
• iPad
• iPhone
• Android tablets and phones

Users can import a range of 3D CAD, LiDAR, BIM, and photogrammetry assets. Autodesk cloud services such as Fusion 360 and BIM 360 can also be integrated seamlessly with the technology. These reality captures or 3D models are essentially a digital canvas for utilising the digital twin with AR data. The user can visualise documents, images, IoT data, and workflow items with objects via a graphical interface tool. The AR data can then overlay models and scans onto real-world objects on site. Arvizio’s Platform interfaces to IoT data hubs as well as popular cloud, enabling integration and association of live IoT data with 3D object models, creating an operational digital twin.

Jonathan Reeves, CEO of Arvizio, is quoted to have said that COVID-19 has functioned as a catalyst for Industry 4.0 enterprise adoption, as businesses are looking for innovative technologies to improve ROI and productivity. AR and digital twins can be seamlessly incorporated for Arvizio’s customers to ensure better processes and increased efficiency.

See Arivizio’s member profile here, and read the full article here.

Some ways in which AR and VR can be utilised in aerospace mentioned in the article include:

• Design and manufacturing – wires can be set virtually rather than manually, saving weeks of time. AR/VR can also teach workers how applications are meant to function in a virtual world.
• Repair and maintenance – AR provides a visual overlay on the screen of the work that needs to be completed without a manual or video guidance, getting the equipment in the air faster.
• Training – AR and VR can build “muscle memory” via remote simulators. This is less expensive and allows for lower risk training.

The percentage use of AR/VR in areas of aerospace as reported by Grid Raster are as follows:

• 83% AR-assisted workforce on production lines
• 75% AR-assisted maintenance and customer visits
• 53% employee training programs
• 30% AR-assisted design processes for aerospace engineers

Rishi Ranjan, CEO of Grid Raster, has acknowledged the impact of COVID-19 on aerospace’s implementation of AR and VR. Of the executives involved in the study, 28% claimed that COVID-19 greatly affected their decision to utilise AR and VR. Furthermore, 39% implied that the pandemic directly incited their adoption process. Ranjan suggested that AR/VR use is due to the current remote nature of work, as a virtual environment can “easily” be moved into employees’ homes.

The efficiency of AR and VR is noted as a reason for its adoption, with the majority of survey respondents reporting a 15-20% increase in efficiency and 5-10% increase in cost savings. However, AR and VR have different uses within aerospace; Ranjan stated that VR is mostly used for training and maintenance, whereas AR is mostly used for manufacturing and repairs.

Cloud technology is also covered in the article as a key factor in AR/VR adoption. The survey revealed that 51% of aerospace executives are focused on the need to move AR/VR solutions to a cloud-based environment, as the technologies require “considerable computing power”. As devices get lighter, cloud connectivity growth is also anticipated, as this allows for better functionality and scalability.

Read the full article here.

The growth will be primarily driven by China and Japan, which together would be accounting for around 59% of the overall data and content management revenue in the region.

Increasing demand for optimising business process and improving efficiency are set to propel the adoption of data and content management solutions in the region, the research says.

“Enterprises are inclined to SaaS-based data and content management software as they exhibit the potential to provide flexibility, cost-effectiveness and are easy to manage,” says Siddharth Tiwari, technology analyst at GlobalData.

“Cloud-based offerings are assisting organisations with the capabilities of the minimum hardware requirements by optimal and shared utilisation,” he explains.

“The large presence of SMEs across APAC augments the adoption of relatively low-cost cloud-based data and content management solutions for different business needs.”

According to the research, exponential growth in the web and mobile generated content through varied sources like blogs and social media platforms have resulted in the growth of structured as well as unstructured content, which has, in turn, led to the increased proliferation of data and content management solutions adoption amongst the enterprises.

“The demand for data and content management is likely to be more in large enterprises as these companies have a huge amount of data in their repository, which can only be handled with this solution,” says Tiwari.

“Enterprises are considering improving their data and content management, increasing the ease-of-use and accessibility of their solutions by implementing cloud deployment, which would also provide the additional benefits of lower costs and less maintenance,” he says.

In terms of verticals, manufacturing will witness the highest growth rate in the data and content management market, followed by energy.

Data and content management solutions in these sectors offer various benefits such as the extended life of content for a regulatory purpose, centralise location and quick access for content, and efficient management and publication of content.

“New developments related to data and content management bring an exciting new realm of possibilities as enterprises are looking to automate and modernise the workplace and empower next-gen workforce,” says Tiwari.

“Furthermore, increasing adoption of cloud analytics and growing inclination toward data integration would further increase the adoption of data and content management solutions in the coming years.”

The original article can be viewed here.

Newcastle University has the Newcastle Flow Cytometry Core Facility, an advanced research lab and technology platform. Cytometry involves a team of experts operating and maintaining the systems used to perform blood cell analysis (cytometers), and also to train other scientists. These systems are in different physical locations, and each team member has a different skill set, causing difficulties in aligning personnel with the appropriate platform. COVID-19 exacerbates this issue, as the team is split between home and on-site work in “bio-bubble” groups, and face-to-face training and support for the program has been suspended.

The Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses were chosen to provide remote support and training to the team at Newcastle University, as the majority of the lab research is hands-on and requires freedom of both hands for safe, effective experiment conduct and system operation. The Smart Glasses enable hands-free work, and can also be configured with safety glasses.

Dr. Andrew Filby, Director of the Newcastle Flow Cytometry Core and Lead of the Innovation, Methodology, and Innovations Research Theme, gives the following advantages of the Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses:

• Noise cancellation – useful for high-ambient noise level environments
• Image stabilisation
• Zoom functions – useful for close detail work
• Compatible with renowned streaming and remote support platforms such as Zoom and TeamViewer
• Easy and intuitive operation and control
• Rugged – can withstand lab environment
• Ensures expert support and training is available remotely

President and CEO of Vuzix, Paul Travers, concludes by stating that Vuzix Smart Glasses are being more widely recognised by international organisations, and that they are proud to have their technology embraced most recently by Newcastle University.

Read more about Vuzix on their AREA member profile here.

NexTech has hired technology industry veteran Yau Boon Lim to support its expansion as President and Managing Director Asia-Pacific. Lim has over 25 years of experience in many aspects of various industries in the Asia-Pacific market, holding leadership positions in global tech companies such as IBM, Motorola, and SAP. He is quoted to have said that he believes NexTech’s technology and team is suited to the fast demands of the Asia-Pacific market and is looking forward to seeing traction gained for the company in this region. As President and Managing Director, Lim will be responsible for driving NexTech’s marketing efforts across Asia, establishing presence via strategic channel partnerships, and building out the team to support service requests by the end of this year.

Already, NexTech has started to develop channel partnerships for expansion within Asia-Pacific high-growth industries, such as education, e-commerce, and conferences. Southeast Asia is the initial focus, with NexTech creating special language and application packs with its InfernoAR technology for countries including China, Japan, and South Korea.

The Asia-Pacific market makes up 60% of the world’s market and consists of over 4 billion people. The CEO of NexTech, Evan Gappelberg, is quoted to have said that the company is ready for their InfernoAR technology, and confident in driving revenue with Lim’s leadership. Their presence, team, and overall capabilities will be expanded in coming months. Gappelberg further stated that this expansion is “a major milestone” for NexTech that represents their continued commitment to international growth, setting them for the future.

Read more about NexTech here.