Gaming The Real World

Using skills learnt from making games, VR developers are bringing virtual and augmented reality to everything from architecture to trucks, finds Thomas McMullan.

- Thomas McMullan

Buildings. Ships. Lorries. Theseare the types of things Ryan Peterson talks tome about. Ina warehouse on the outskirts of Vancouver, the CEO of Finger Food Studios lays out his vision of how augmented reality (AR) can be applied to industry.Wearing a Microsoft HoloLens, he clicks his fingers and a mirage appears at his feet.

“The real magic of AR is you’re able to see the same thing,” he tells me. “Say there’s a hole in the floor, there’s no disagreement that there’s a hole in the floor. It’s so simple, but think about that simple problem and expand it to 2,000 people working for you. If you can all visualise the same problem, then you can focus to come upwith a solution.”

There’s no hole in the floor of the warehouse, but there is an enormous truck. Only the cab is physically there; the bonnet has been stripped off. The rest is an illusion, projected around the real vehicle using HoloLens’ spatial technology. I’m wearing a headset and, walking around the warehouse, we can inspect the virtual model as if it’s a real, life-sized object. Peterson tells me to select a floating menu option. Touching my
forefinger to thumb to select a new design, the part-hologram, part-metal lorry changes shape in front of my eyes.

To do this with a claymodel, let alone a full prototype, would be a long and labour-intensive process. Therein lies the benefit for using this type of technology for big objects such as trucks, ships and buildings; things that take a lot of time and money to mock up.With the help of augmented reality, Peterson and I can flick through designs as if we’re browsing character outfits in a video game. Andwe can do all this at the same time, looking at the same virtual vehicle in the same warehouse.