Augmented reality brings life to data: Caterpillar Inc.
Already 6 years ago
In 2015, I was simply blown away by Caterpillar’s presentation.
It was probably a bit over the top, and the speakers – heavy hitters, like Microsoft – changed their tune. I’m talking in particular about the glasses that seem so easy to wear, when you probably needed a serious computer nearby.
Still, the idea that we could identify procedures, parts and especially bring a product to life, life-size, made me think that we were behind.
An interesting and motivating presentation for Karbonic
We already made a lot of renderings, both with very powerful and difficult to master tools, as well as with more mainstream tools. But this was way beyond film or rendering.
A layered universe
Of course, we quickly achieved some interesting goals:
A first virtual world in which it was possible to walk around and interact moderately. Then a showroom, an augmented reality app on smartphone and tablet.
All this worked very well provided you have relatively powerful hardware. Especially when you use constructions and assemblies from industry as a basis for your work. We are not talking about a more or less realistic car from which the engine has been removed. This is often the case, if the performances must be met, we start from scratch and create an empty shell. We apply textures and lighting to it. Beware, the simulation of some games for example goes much further and could give lessons to many companies in the area, this is not reductive.
So we tried to reduce the size and technical requirements of our applications. Very interesting phase of running – even partially – a machine tool on a smartphone, no matter how powerful it is.
We succeeded and little by little we had to move away from “all terrain” engines like Unity. Great tools, and I would still mention Unreal whose engine is used for various other simulation applications.
Today, we are still working on virtual reality projects. We are able to create augmented reality tools easily thanks to partnerships with some companies that have created impressive tools. I’m thinking here of Trinus VR which, without being a partner, has allowed us to test its high-end tools as developers.
Without saying that we have reached the level of what Caterpillar and its partners have proposed (or Audi), we are still proud to have been able to quickly propose functional solutions adapted to the market. For some time now, and this is mentioned on the site, since Oculus was bought by Facebook, the price of this kind of equipment has dropped and we are now focusing on applications that can afford to be more demanding, since they are directly linked to powerful stations, wireless and defining a movement space with simplicity.
Cette article est traduit de “Guide: How to Become a Technical Writer”
https://medium.com/@kesiparker/guide-how-to-become-a-technical-writer-f2c631586963
Bien qu’orientant vers des cours payants, j’ai trouvé ce article légèrement piquant. Son illustration en particulier.
