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‘viewfinder’-probably-won’t-get-vr-support,-but-a-standalone-game-isn’t-out-of-the-question

‘Viewfinder’ Probably Won’t Get VR Support, But a Standalone Game Isn’t Out of the Question

Viewfinder launched today across PlayStation 5 and Steam, bringing its perspective-shifting first-person puzzling to traditional monitors. Ever since we saw the demo pop up on Steam earlier this year though, it was pretty apparent the mind-bending indie title would make for a great VR game. If you were hoping for VR support though, you’re probably out of luck.

“We did some prototyping of a VR version a while back – it was interesting, but there’s definitely some challenges to solve with things like forced perspective,” Sad Owl Studios developer Jacob Keane tells Road to VR. “It’s likely if we do a VR version it’ll be a slightly different game, similar to how SUPERHOT and SUPERHOT VR are different games, rather than a straight port.”

If the team does decide to go the SUPERHOT VR route—i.e. creating an entirely new game that borrows assets and mechanics, but created specifically for VR headsets—it would allow them to better integrate VR-native mechanics from the ground-up, and also optimize how the game’s perspective-shifting gameplay works when rendered for stereoscopy, and not flatscreen.

When asked what Keane thought of playing the PC game with VR modding software such as VorpX, it wasn’t exactly recommended.

“I cannot imagine vorpx is going to be a nice experience with this game (worse than usual!) due to the whole.. perspective issues, and the bunch of weird rendering tricks we do,” Keane says.

While there’s no VR support in sight for what promises to be a fairly successful entry into the puzzle genre—it’s already garnered critical acclaim from IGN, GameSpot, and the Guardian to name a few—at least there’s hope for a proper VR title at some point in the future.

‘Viewfinder’ Probably Won’t Get VR Support, But a Standalone Game Isn’t Out of the Question Read More »

ubisoft-to-support-haptic-vest-in-‘assassin’s-creed-mirage’,-but-no-word-yet-on-‘nexus’-vr-game

Ubisoft to Support Haptic Vest in ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’, But No Word Yet on ‘Nexus’ VR Game

Earlier this month Ubisoft announced a new brand deal with haptic clothing creator OWO, which produces a thin and light shirt featuring electrode-based haptics. Strangely enough, the partnership isn’t targeted at the upcoming VR game Assassin’s Creed Nexus, but rather the non-VR game Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

OWO’s haptics provide 10 electrified zones around the user’s torso and arms, something the company says can deliver 30 sensations, with various impacts including bullet wounds, punches, machine gun recoil, wind and more. It seems like the ideal candidate for an Assassin’s Creed VR tie-in, but Ubisoft isn’t saying as much. Yet.

Image courtesy OWO

We reached out to OWO to see whether the company’s unique haptic shirt would eventually support Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed VR game. While the answer was non-committal, OWO says its partnership with Ubisoft doesn’t stop at Mirage.

“Currently, the only Ubisoft title announced to work with the OWO Haptic Gaming System is Assassin’s Creed Mirage,” an OWO spokesperson tells Road to VR. “As this is a long-term partnership, more Ubisoft titles will be announced in the near future.”

Notably, OWO already supports a handful of VR titles, such as Half-Life: AlyxPistol Whip, Beat Saber, Bonelab, Until You Fall, and Arizona Sunshine. These are all PC versions that require third-party mods, however individual developers can choose to support the vest on most any device since it connects via Bluetooth, much like bHaptics’ various haptic devices.

To boot, Ubisoft says it’s supporting OWO on Assassin’s Creed Mirage versions on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC. The edition will be available initially for purchase on OWO’s official website and will be sold as a bundle with the Assassin’s Creed Mirage game available through different retailers later on, the company says. Pricing isn’t clear yet, although the haptic shirt sells direct from OWO for €500 (~$560).

Equally unclear is when the special edition OWO shirt will launch; AC Mirage itself launches October 12th this year. Still, that leaves a fair amount of time between now and then to add in OWO support for Nexus, which is launching exclusively on Quest sometime Holiday 2023.

Ubisoft to Support Haptic Vest in ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’, But No Word Yet on ‘Nexus’ VR Game Read More »

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Luxury Brand Valentino Launches Meta Avatar Clothing

Meta and Italian luxury brand Valentino have partnered to launch a new line of digital clothing on the company’s Avatar Store.

When the Meta Avatars Store launched in late 2022, the company offered digital outfits from a number of luxury clothing brands, including Balenciaga, Prada and Thom Browne.

Now the prestigious Roman fashion house is among them, bringing a range of patently Valentino outfits inspired by its recent IRL collection, including two mini dresses, a skintight jumpsuit, a suit jacket, a bomber jacket, a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts.

All of its digital outfits are priced at $5, making it basically the cheapest thing you can buy with the name Valentino attached to it. Second place goes to two physical items, the Rosso Valentino Mini Lipstick and Stick With Me Glitter Primer, both of which will set you back $25.

Like all of the digital clothing available on the Meta Avatar Store, users can dress their avatars across Quest, Instagram, Facebook, as well as in Messenger via its new avatar calling function, which lets you use your avatar in place of your camera for video chats. In VR, users can show off their digital purchases in the company’s Horizon Worlds social app.

If you’ve never perused the digital racks, follow these steps to sort through the store’s paid and free digital clothing:

  1. Put on your Meta Quest headset.
  2. Select your profile picture from the navigation menu, then select Edit avatar.
  3. Select Store. From here, you can filter by brand and price.
  4. Select the item that you want to get, then tap Save or Buy.
    • If you’re buying an item, enter your device PIN and confirm the purchase.
  5. Select Save.

Your avatar will be updated automatically with your new items. You can go to your closet any time to view and change them.

Luxury Brand Valentino Launches Meta Avatar Clothing Read More »

apple-reportedly-departs-from-tradition-with-creation-of-dedicated-xr-product-team

Apple Reportedly Departs from Tradition with Creation of Dedicated XR Product Team

According to a Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman, Apple is changing things up with the creation of a new Vision Products Group (VPG), which is tasked with developing the company’s recently unveiled mixed reality headset, Vision Pro.

The report maintains that with the creation of VPG, Apple is departing from its “functional” management structure, which was introduced by Steve Jobs in the early ’90s.

Effectively, Jobs distributed the company’s product development efforts across more general departments, such as hardware, software, design, services, etc, instead of sectionalizing hardware development into individual product teams, like Mac, Watch, iPad, iPhone, etc.

Apple Vision Pro | Image courtesy Apple

The so-called Vision Products Group is reportedly independent from Apple’s main software and hardware engineering and other departments, including its own internal versions of those teams which report to unit head Mike Rockwell.

Gurman maintains that VPG still collaborates with other parts of Apple though, including design and operations teams overseen by COO Jeff Williams, Johny Srouji’s chip unit known for the company’s M2 and R1 processors, and iOS/macOS frameworks headed Craig Federighi’s software engineering group.

Some reportedly believed the dedicated group would be disbanded, making it follow the company’s functional management structure. It has however both persisted beyond the Vision Pro’s June unveiling at WWDC and was branded to reflect that the group is tasked with creation of Vision Products, implying the team will be sticking around for multiple product cycles yet to come.

Apple Reportedly Departs from Tradition with Creation of Dedicated XR Product Team Read More »

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‘Space Salvage’ is a Retro Sci-fi Space Sim Coming to Quest & PC VR This Year

Space Salvage is an upcoming single-player VR space flight game that’s all about collecting trash and fighting enemy factions. In space!

Developed by UK indie studio Fruity SystemsSpace Salvage tosses you into the corporate sci-fi landscape as a small cog trying to rise up the ranks of Space Salvage Corporation (SSC).

The studio says that while it’s all about skillfully maneuvering your space pod through over 30 dynamic galactic crash sites, tasking you to find and collect all the lost cargo, it’s also set to be “riddled with dry humour and 80s sci-fi pop culture references.”

Players will also be able to choose how they play, whether it be a more relaxing search for valuables across nebulae or upgrading armaments to win inter-faction dog fights—of course, all while physically manipulating the virtual throttle and flight stick, you know, like you would in space.

Space Salvage is set to launch on Quest 2 and SteamVR headsets sometime in Q4 2023. In the meantime, a free demo is available both on SteamVR headsets and Quest via App Lab and SideQuest.

To follow along with development of the full game, the studio also has an active developer blog, which offers regular updates on how the team is building out its world and characters.

‘Space Salvage’ is a Retro Sci-fi Space Sim Coming to Quest & PC VR This Year Read More »

one-of-pc’s-greatest-vr-games-since-‘half-life:-alyx’-is-coming-to-psvr-2-later-this-year

One of PC’s Greatest VR Games Since ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ is Coming to PSVR 2 Later This Year

Vertigo 2 (2023), the critically acclaimed shooter adventure, is officially on its way to PSVR 2.

Perp Games announced during its VR Summer Showcase that it’s partnered with developer Zach Tsiakalis-Brown of Zulubo Productions to bring the Half-Life-style sci-fi shooter to PSVR 2. Both a digital and physical release is said to arrive sometime “later this year.”

Launched on PC VR in March, Vertigo 2 returns you to the universe’s robot and alien-infested science facility, serving up some very VR-native design alongside its patently funny and quirky cast of characters. We liked the game so much we gave it a rare [9.5/10] in our review on PC.

Vertigo 2 is also getting a free update this year that will bring an in-VR level editor so you can create your own adventures and share them.

Additionally, it’s set to include three new playable characters that unlock upon completion of the game, all of which come with unique abilities that will change how you play.

Check out Tsiakalis-Brown’s full announcement below to see the level editor and additional characters in action:

One of PC’s Greatest VR Games Since ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ is Coming to PSVR 2 Later This Year Read More »

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Sales of Valve’s Index Headset Are Waning After Years of Surprising Longevity

Valve’s Index VR headset is now more than four years old. Despite its age, the headset continued to sell at a surprising rate over the years—but as they say, nothing lasts forever.

Valve launched Index with the goal of setting the bar for PC VR headsets to beat. And by many measures it accomplished that goal. Despite the $1,000 price tag and the headset’s age, Index remains the second most-used headset on Steam at 18.38% of active headsets on the platform (though a distant second to Quest 2 at 42.05%) as of June 2023. Even with just one headset, that makes Valve the second largest headset vendor on the platform.

Despite PC VR headsets that have launched since with higher resolution or OLED displays or even a cheaper price, the headset’s balance of comfort, visuals, sound, tracking, and controllers have made it a popular choice long after its spec sheet would suggest.

While usage of Index remains strong, sales of the headset appear to be in decline after years of holding steady.

Although Valve doesn’t share how much revenue individual products make on its platform, Steam does rank the top selling products, by revenue, each week. Thanks to SteamDB’s archive of the data, we’ve been able to get a rough trend of the headset’s sales performance over the years.

The data is at times sparse; for most of the dataset we only know the top 10 products by weekly revenue (if Index fell under the top 10 we don’t know exactly how far it fell), but Steam recently began sharing the top 100, giving us a clearer insight into the downward trend of Index sales.

The exact reason for the somewhat sudden change in trend is unclear, but we have one hypothesis. The downturn began happening some six to eight months after Valve released Steam Deck—the company’s first hardware product since Index. The turn also came around the new year heading from 2022 into 2023.

Especially considering that actual usage of the headset remains strong, our best guess is that sales of Index have trended downward largely because Valve has shifted the spotlight to Steam Deck; possibly even more so after the company saw how well the device sold through the 2022 holiday season.

While Valve had once promoted Index in various places on the Steam storefront, now Steam Deck appears more often to be put in front of Steam’s huge audience of users:

Valve may even have reallocated some of its Index manufacturing capacity to meet demand for Steam Deck.

Its difficult to say what this means for Index and Valve’s future VR hardware ambitions. There’s no doubt that the introduction of standalone headsets has changed the VR landscape considerably compared to when Index first launched. There have been glimpses that Valve is still working on something behind the scenes, but the company’s limited attention may be largely focused on Steam Deck for the foreseeable future.

Sales of Valve’s Index Headset Are Waning After Years of Surprising Longevity Read More »

late-to-psvr-2,-‘beat-saber’-continues-to-dominate-most-downloaded-charts

Late to PSVR 2, ‘Beat Saber’ Continues to Dominate Most Downloaded Charts

Beat Saber, VR’s favorite block-slashing rhythm game, came to PlayStation VR 2 well past the headset’s February 2023 launch, coming to Sony’s latest VR headset in late May. And while Beat Saber topped the May charts within only one week of being available on PSVR 2, it seems the long-standing VR favorite is showing no signs of stopping.

In PlayStation’s June top downloads list, Beat Saber has made out as the top PSVR 2 download again. Here’s the full list, showing the charts across the US/Canada, Europe, and Japan.

US & Canada EU Japan
1 Beat Saber Beat Saber Beat Saber
2 Pavlov Pavlov Hubris
3 Job Simulator Hubris

Kayak VR: Mirage

4 Hubris PS VR 2 Job Simulator C-Smash VRS
5 Walkabout Mini Golf Red Matter 2

Onogoro Monogatari ~The Tale of Onogoro~

6 The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution

TRIPP: A New Way to Meditate

7 Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition Kayak VR: Mirage Red Matter 2
8 Kayak VR: Mirage Walkabout Mini Golf

Horizon Call of the Mountain

9 Red Matter 2 Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition

Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition

10 Swordsman VR Swordsman VR Job Simulator

Notably, PlayStation’s charts are based on PS Store purchases only, which means game upgrades or games bundled with hardware are not included. Beat Saber is one of those in a limited pool of games that offers a free PSVR 2 upgrade from the original PSVR version, so it seems new PSVR 2 users are jumping into the block-slashing action organically.

It’s no surprise Beat Saber has fared well on PSVR 2 for new players though, as by now the game is fairly synonymous as a great beginner’s title thanks to its ‘easy to play, hard to master’ gameplay in addition to not being nearly as involved as some VR games, many of which require some form of artificial locomotion.

Not only that, Meta-owned studio Beat Games has also wrangled a ton of music deals since the game’s 2018 launch to bring an extensive library of paid DLC to the game. This includes everything from legacy classics such as Queen, Kiss, and Lynyrd Skynyrd to current pop hits like The Weekend, Lizzo, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, and BTS to name a few.

With such a sustained performance, it’s likely Beat Saber will continue its reign on PSVR 2 for months to come.

Late to PSVR 2, ‘Beat Saber’ Continues to Dominate Most Downloaded Charts Read More »

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Asymmetric VR Game ‘DAVIGO’ Among Most-Played Steam Next Fest Demos

Steam Next Fest, Valve’s indie showcase featuring free demos for upcoming PC games, had the most demo downloads in Next Fest history last month, and among the top titles was the asymmetric VR game Davigo.

Valve announced the 50 most-played demos that made it big on June’s edition of Next Fest, something the company said accounted for 11.4 million demos played across the board.

And Davigo seems to have resonated with Next Fest visitors in June, becoming the only VR game to make the list. Valve ordered its list by unique player count, and Davigo managed to rank 25th among all games (re: not just VR titles).

Featuring its own brand of David vs. Goliath-inspired combat gameplay, Davigo lets VR players take on the role of a massive giant who must defeat one or more PC players armed with rockets.

With development started in 2019 by Davigo Studio, the asymmetric VR game has since graduated to its third Alpha, which is made exclusively available to Patreon supporters of the project.

Notably, the Next Fest demo featured cross-compatibility with the game’s Alpha 3.3, which no doubt helped populate servers. Not only that, but PC players have historically been able to play against VR players for free.

The game, which supports both PC VR headsets and Quest natively, doesn’t have a launch date yet, with the game on Steam marked as “coming soon.”

Asymmetric VR Game ‘DAVIGO’ Among Most-Played Steam Next Fest Demos Read More »

roblox-is-coming-to-quest,-casting-a-shadow-on-meta’s-own-social-vr-platform

Roblox is Coming to Quest, Casting a Shadow on Meta’s Own Social VR Platform

One of the biggest names social gaming is coming to Quest. Roblox is home to tens of millions of daily users and user-generated experiences. “In the coming weeks” Roblox will launch on Quest, casting a shadow on Meta’s own social VR platform, Horizon Worlds.

A Curious Proposition

Meta confirmed today that Roblox is coming to Quest “in the coming weeks” starting as an Open Beta on App Lab before eventually graduating to a full launch on the main Quest store.

On one hand, the move is a win for Meta. Roblox is one of the most popular social gaming and user-generated content platforms; playing in a similar ballpark with the likes of Minecraft and Fortnite. Getting Roblox onto Quest brings a valuable and recognizable IP to the platform, along with a huge new social graph of non-VR players.

On the other hand, Roblox is very nearly a direct competitor to Meta’s own social VR platform, Horizon Worlds. Both Horizon and Roblox are heavily focused on social experiences and user-generated content. But compared to Horizon, which caters only to the smaller demographic of VR players, Roblox has some 66 million daily active players across Xbox, iOS, Android, desktop—and soon, Quest.

For comparison, that means the number of people playing Roblox every day (66 million) is more than the total number of Quest headsets ever sold (believed to be around 20 million).

So ambitious creators looking to build content for the largest audience (and largest return-on-investment) will see the scale tipped vastly toward Roblox over Horizon.

Whether or not Roblox on Quest will stifle the fledgling Horizon remains to be seen, but needless to say this is an awkward situation. Not just for Meta though; Roblox also represents a looming threat to other social VR applications like VRChat and Rec Room.

Roblox Content Compatibility on Quest

Roblox currently has some 15 million playable experiences for users to choose from, but not all (probably not most) will be suitable to play on Quest.

Meta says the Roblox Open Beta on Quest is a “great opportunity for the Roblox developer community to optimize their existing games for Quest and build new ones for VR while gathering input and feedback from the Quest community.”

That said, Roblox Corp plans to automatically enable VR support for some portion of existing Roblox experiences, though exactly how many is unclear.

“[…] we have automatically updated the Access setting for some of the experiences that use default player scripts to include support for VR devices. We have found that experiences that use default player scripts typically run well in VR without modifications. Automatically publishing these experiences allows us to seed our library of experiences that support VR devices,” the company says in its announcement of Roblox on Quest.

Presently it isn’t clear if or how the company plans to ensure that user-generated Roblox experiences on meet minimum performance expectations on Quest.

Modernized PC VR Support for Roblox

Roblox has offered PC VR support for many years at this point and the company appears committed to continue supporting the platform in addition to Quest.

Less than a month ago Roblox Corp announced that it would adopt OpenXR to future-proof its VR support, including for PC VR headsets. The update also included improvements to correctly synchronizing the player’s VR playspace and scale to that of the current experience.

Roblox is Coming to Quest, Casting a Shadow on Meta’s Own Social VR Platform Read More »

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Meta CTO Says Quest 3 Announcement Timing Had ‘Nothing to do with Vision Pro’

Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said this week that the announcement of Quest 3, which came just days ahead of Vision Pro reveal, had nothing to do with the timing of Apple’s first public foray into XR.

“People won’t believe me, I don’t care—I’m telling the truth, you can believe me or not, that’s up to you […],” Bosworth began in a Q&A hosted on Instagram this week in response to a question about the curious timing of Quest 3’s announcement, which came just days ahead of the reveal of Apple Vision Pro. He continued:

What we found out… especially last year… is that when we announce a new headset in September/October, a lot of people—especially when you already have headsets out in market—a lot of people have already made buying decisions in the summertime, or they’re kind of committed to a path, so you’re not capturing the full holiday season.

So we sent a note to [Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg] long before we even knew about WWDC timing or substance, saying ‘hey for Quest 3 we want to announce it early, so that people know it’s coming, so they can plan well in advance of the holiday season what they want to do’.

So that was our plan from a long time ago, and the timing worked out unbelievably well [laughs]. I’m not mad about it… I’m not saying I’m mad about it, I’m just saying that was the plan that we developed in terms of go-to-market, and it had nothing to do with [Vision Pro].

The announcement of Quest 3—which came four days before Apple’s Vision Pro reveal—was certainly curious as far as the company’s prior patterns. Compared to the kind of formal announcement we’ve seen, the new headset was first teased and then revealed on social media through Mark Zuckerberg’s feeds. Even when more formal information was shared shortly thereafter, the company didn’t share the headset’s full specs, instead promising more details to come at the annual XR event, Meta Connect, which wouldn’t be held for nearly four more months.

Regardless, Bosworth maintains the Quest 3 announcement was decided well before the company knew what Apple would reveal or when.

Bosworth, who heads Meta’s XR division, Reality Labs, also answered some other questions about Apple Vision Pro during the Q&A.

Q: Thoughts on Apple’s decision to have attached battery pack rather than all-in-one headset?

A: At some point these headsets are a physics problem. You can spend your thermals and your weight one way, or another way, but at some point the equation has to square. [Apple’s] headset, I think, is roughly in the same ballpark of weight as our headsets, and they wanted to have this battery life, so they wanted to go external with [the battery]. It doesn’t matter who you are, what company you are, who you work for… physics is a uniform belligerent to this space. We’re making progress hand-over-fist as an industry; I think Apple’s entry is going to help with that a lot. But yeah, you have to square the circle somehow, and they had to do it with an external battery pack and a cord.

Q: How does the Vision Pro change Meta’s roadmap?

A: Andy Grove—famous Intel CEO and kind of godfather of Silicon Valley—always used to say “only the paranoid survive,” and we try to embody that. You try to approach your work with a lot of humility. Whenever a great competitor comes out, whether it be the Pico, whether it be Apple Vision Pro, certainly; you’re trying to look and see, what did they do differently, and why? What did we miss? Did we get it wrong, or did they figure something out? So you try to learn from it. And then be humble about it. At the same time, you can’t constantly be chasing every competitor because then you’re getting thrown off your own game. You’re getting thrown off what you can uniquely do and what you’ve done right, and that they need to learn from. In our case I think we’ve got a great ecosystem, we’ve got a great set of devices, we’ve got a great price point. So it’s a balance to try to learn from them and not over-rotate on that. Nothing that we hadn’t looked at before […] we were focusing on gaze and touch for AR as well—it’s a natural AR interaction—is that something that needs to get more priority in VR? Not sure yet. So we’re looking at it… we’re not sure yet.

Meta CTO Says Quest 3 Announcement Timing Had ‘Nothing to do with Vision Pro’ Read More »

magiscan-app-lets-users-create-3d-models-with-their-smartphone

MagiScan App Lets Users Create 3D Models With Their Smartphone

As if our smartphones weren’t already incredible enough, startup company AR-Generation is using them to bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds. With their new cutting-edge app, you can create 3D models with only your smartphone and use them for any AR or metaverse application.

Introducing MagiScan

Meet MagiScan, an AI-powered 3D scanner app that produces high-quality 3D models for any AR or metaverse application. Developed by AR-Generation, a member of the NVIDIA Inception program, MagiScan is the first and only 3D scanner in NVIDIA Omniverse, a real-time 3D graphics collaboration platform.

The MagiScan app, available on both iOS and Android devices, allows users to capture an image of any object using their smartphone camera and quickly generate its detailed 3D model. AR-Feneration co-founder and CEO, Kiryl Sidarchuk, estimates that this process is up to 100 times less expensive and 10 times faster than manual 3D modeling, making it an accessible and user-friendly option for creators. With MagiScan, creators can easily refine their work and increase accessibility to AR technology.

3D scanning objects with MagiScan

While 3D scanning with smartphones is not new technology, it has significantly improved over the years. In 2015, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed a tool for measuring real objects in 3D space using “average” cellphone cameras. They developed their technology to perform accurate measurements so it could be helpful in self-driving cars and virtual shopping for eyeglass frames.

A similar technology was also created in 2021, called the PhotoCatch app, which uses the then-new Apple Object Capture photogrammetry technology.

How MagiScan Works

MagiScan is incredibly easy to use. Simply open the app, scan an object from all angles, and wait for a few seconds for the app to generate a 3D model. Once done, you can export your 3D model in various formats, including STL which allows you to print your model.

In addition to personal use, brands can also use MagiScan for their online platforms. Just enable “Connect MagiScan for Business,” then scan your products and add their 3D models to your website.

Exporting 3D Models Directly to Omniverse

AR-Generation also created an extension allowing MagiScan users to export their 3D models directly to the NVIDIA Omniverse. “We customized our app to allow export of 3D models based on real-world objects directly to Omniverse, enabling users to showcase the models in AR and integrate them into any metaverse or game,” Sidarchuk said.

Magiscan to Omniverse

This extension is made possible by OpenUSD or Universal Scene Description, an open-source software originally developed by Pixar Animation Studios for simulating, describing, composing, and collaborating in the 3D realm. The OpenUSD compatibility is Sidarchuk’s favorite Ominverse feature, and he believes that OpenUSD is the “format of the future.”

The company chose to build an extension for Omniverse because the platform, according to Sidarchuk,  “provides a convenient environment that integrates all the tools for working with 3D and generative AI.”

MagiScan and Augmented Reality’s Impact on E-Commerce

The impact of 3D models and AR is not limited to the gaming and metaverse realms. E-commerce businesses can also benefit from the rapid advancements in this technology.

About 60% of online shoppers consider high-quality images a critical factor in their purchasing decisions. To keep up with the competition, brands must provide more than just photos with a white background. They can also display 3D models of their products on their websites or online marketplaces to provide a more immersive browsing experience.

Through MagiScan, AR-Generation believes that conversion rates can increase up to 94%, while returns can drop up to 58%. Crisp and accurate 3D models allow consumers to visualize a product in real life, helping them make more informed purchasing decisions. This may be the same reason why Carnegie Mellon University researchers developed their 3D scanner to aid people in buying eyeglass frames online.

The Growing Significance of AR in Daily Life

Sidarchuk believes that AR will become an integral part of everyday life. And it’s not hard to see why. AR has grown in popularity over the years and is now widely used in various industries, from gaming to shopping to employee training. With AR, individuals and corporations can experience immersive virtual environments in a safe and secure way.

Thanks to advancements in technology, high-quality 3D experiences are now possible on smartphones. This means that AR and the Omniverse have the potential to impact even the most mundane activities of our daily lives. With this in mind, it’s clear that AR technology is here to stay.

MagiScan App Lets Users Create 3D Models With Their Smartphone Read More »