News
Varjo uses mixed reality to ‘virtually teleport’ AEC professionals to the construction site he Varjo Reality Cloud is a new ‘virtual teleportation’ platform from industrial VR/XR specialist Varjo. It enables anybody to 3D scan their surroundings in real time using a Varjo XR-3 mixed reality headset and then instantly transport others to that same physical reality. The Varjo Reality Cloud platform has a major focus on construction. Anyone can instantly ‘teleport’ to a construction site to join others live inside a collaborative immersive expeirience using a ‘highly accurate’ 3D reconstruction of the site. In the future, Varjo said, the technology could extend to merging as-designed BIM data with as-built reality models for construction verification. “With the Varjo teleport, you can have a construction worker, maybe one of the managers over there, put the headset on, and then the customers can join in, instantly,” says Urho Konttori, founder and chief technology officer, Varjo speaking with AEC Magazine. “Or maybe the architect can oversee the site, the creation of the building, give final comments and collaborate without having to actually fly to a different country.” To capture the reality, the Varjo XR-3 headset uses a combination of its built in LiDAR scanner and stereo video pass through cameras. The ‘fully immersive photorealistic real time 3D’ data is then pushed to the cloud in real-time where it is processed
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on powerful GPUs and the pixels streamed to a variety of client devices. According to Varjo, thanks to its foveated transport algorithm, powered by Varjo eye tracking on the headset, you can stream your reality with a lower bitrate than you would stream a movie from Netflix, while keeping the human eye resolution quality. You currently need a Varjo VR-3 or XR-3 headset to experience the Varjo Reality Cloud, but this will extend to other devices in the future, including laptops, phones, tablets, or wireless headsets.
Building construction workflows
To help drive development of AEC workflows in the Varjo Reality Cloud, Varjo has acquired Dimension10, a Norwegian software company that specialises in BIM collaboration using VR/AR headsets. The company’s virtual meeting suite is designed specifically for AEC teams and will be a ‘critical component’ in future developments for virtual collaboration. Dimension10 (tinyurl.com/AEC-D10) will allow Varjo to bring in as-designed BIM models and merge them with as-built reality models captured by the Varjo XR-3 immersive headset. Capturing reality Varjo told AEC Magazine that it is The LiDAR scanner on the Varjo XR-3 already exploring construction headset can capture the world at distances verification workflows with of up to five metres at 30 frames per Dimension10, with the company having second. According to Varjo, accuracy is previously used on-site point cloud data sub-cm at close distance, but 5cm at 5m captured with traditional laser scanners. due to calibration tolerances. Larger areas Dimension10’s sofware has direct can be captured by walking around a site integrations with Autodesk Revit, and because positional tracking is subAutodesk Navisworks and supports IFC, mm, the accuracy would not decrease, BCF, FBX and other neutral formats. says Varjo. Varjo is also inviting select developers LiDAR data is then combined with to create solutions on the platform, using various in house developed algorithms an API, so expect more industry-specific that ‘fuse it with depth from stereo integrations. But, not for a while. In the disparity maps’ taken from the video see words of Timo Toikkanen, Varjo CEO, through cameras. “What this means is “It’s going to be a long journey, it’s not that we have a very robust depth estimate going to be happening overnight.” for every single pixel of the camera feed Alpha Access to the software will start and this is one of the game changers in the later this year. quality,” says Konttori. ■ varjo.com
What AEC Magazine thinks It’s still very early days for Varjo’s Reality Cloud, but we’re certainly excited by its potential. Yes, you could scan a construction site with a laser scanner or SLAM device, bring that dataset into VR and host a collaborative session, but that all takes time. The fact that this workflow appears to be seamless and happens
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on-demand in real-time is what makes it so interesting. With the Covid-19 pandemic there’s been a huge rise in demand for 360 cameras and on-site scanning and viewing the data remotely. Varjo Reality Cloud takes things to the next level in terms of experiencing the reality of what’s been built, without leaving the comfort
of your office or home. Without the accuracy of a laser scanner, however, whether this can extend to construction verification remains to be seen. Varjo may need to partner with a specialist like Topcon using tools like Verity to make this a reality. Finally, we’re not entirely sure what Health and Safety
would think about someone wearing a fully immersive headset on site (albeit one with mixed reality video passthrough) but if Volvo is letting its engineers drive real cars on test tracks when wearing one (tinyurl.com/ volvo-Varjo), walking around a construction site in a controlled way shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
www.AECmag.com
20/07/2021 11:28
