Augmented Reality can change brain surgery thanks to powerful diagnostic platforms, revolutionize radiology, and open new doors to reconstructive surgery.

The article starts by talking over the history of AR and VR before noting specific areas in medicine and healthcare where the technology is being used:

Providing augmented information for the physician and the surgeon during interventional procedures such as Computerized Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) visualization paths.

AR is used in education for students and teachers. The main applications in medical education include representation of mechanisms in space and time dimensions in physiology, or 4D; and 3D visualizations of difficult structures in anatomy.

The article goes on to discuss augmentation of surgeon’s skills.  Magic Leap and Brainlab’s partnership are working on surgical procedures.  Another application is project DR, the capacity to present segmented images to see through tissues and connect blood vessels.

The article includes links to a number of videos where AR in healthcare is explored.

Read the original article in full here.

The visualisation team at the Coventry-based MTC has been made a partner of Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Programme – one of a select group of organisations in Europe to gain the sought-after recognition.

The accolade recognises the MTC’s advanced work in the fields of augmented, mixed and virtual reality, in particular its ability to deliver high-value generating applications in an enterprise environment. It will mean that the MTC will be able to help companies remotely using Microsoft visualisation programmes.

The accolade came after a stringent examination by Microsoft of the MTC’s capabilities and breadth of mixed reality applications, concentrating on client and end-user experiences. The recognition means the MTC will have the opportunity to work with Microsoft on joint projects with companies who can benefit from the technology. They will also work with Microsoft to develop apps for advanced manufacturing and teach other companies how to use Microsoft’s mixed reality programmes.

MTC technology manager David Varela said the partnership was already opening doors.

Read MTC AREA member profile page.

The article features many quotes and figures from thought leaders who are members of The AREA, Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance and is based on discussions across the industry extracted from Digi-Capital’s Augmented/Virtual Reality Report Q2 2019.

“While consumer AR/VR is proving itself, enterprise AR/VR is already delivering strong return on investment for major corporations like Walmart, Lockheed Martin, and Verizon.

But the market remains a series of connected point solutions, not a fully functioning ecosystem (yet).”

That YET is very important.

If you’ve not already been following the AREA for a while and fully understand our mission, this would be a good time to tell you that the entire existence of The AREA Alliance is devoted to developing a cohesive AR enterprise ecosystem and accelerating adoption of enterprise AR.

The article addresses how is enterprise AR/VR driving ROI today, and looks are what else it needs to scale across platforms.

The focus of the article is defining by number of users how many users are needed to qualify the term active users.

AREA members quoted in the article include PTC Vuforia, Upskill, Lockheed Martin.

Further related reading:

Read the full article on Venture Beat

AREA Enterprise AR ROI Best Practice (May 2018)

AREA Enterprise AR ROI Case Study

The latest article includes a roundup that mentions some of the AREA’s members and the great work they are doing to accelerate adoption of enterprise Augmented Reality.

10,000 RealWear HMDs heading to front line industrial workers in Kazakhstan. The Qualcomm Snapdragon powered headsets will be provided by UROS as part of a digitization project aiming to accelerate XR global adoption. The partnership between the three companies marks the largest order of industrial HMDs RealWear has had to date. The RealWear HMT-1 and HMT-1Z1 provide a heads up display and voice-powered controls.

ThirdEye Gen lands 5G partnership with Verizon and patents for improving its mixed reality glasses. The makers of the “smallest mixed reality glasses” will be Verizon’s first 5G smart glasses partner. ThirdEye Gen recently won two patents: AR Assisted Large Data Streaming for streaming AR content wirelessly, and an OLED Driver for improved display quality.

The article also takes a look at:

• Khronos Group aims to establish 3D assets standard for cross-vendor ecommerce
• Labster raises $21 Million series B for expanding virtual lab catalog
• HTC Vive conducts survey of over 1800 VR developers

Links:

Read the full article on Forbes

AREA Member profile RealWear Inc

AREA Member profile ThirdEye Gen

Key points from the article include:

• AR may benefit investor-owned, municipal and cooperative utilities in improving business processes, speed power restoration and help address the challenge of an aging, retiring utility workforce facilitating the preservation of institutional knowledge.
• According to industry experts, the energy and the utility sector are expected to spend more than $15bn annually by 2020 on AR technology.
• In the long run, these emerging technologies – like AR, VR, AI, robotics and digital transformation – will bring an acceleration in revenue growth, increase organisations’ agility and improve risk management.
• The utility industry faces some significant workforce challenges ahead as the baby boomers retire, which was highlighted by a 2017 Department of Energy utility workforce assessment.

To read the article in full see Power-Technology.com

The Wireless Broadband Alliance, an organization that supports the adoption of next generation Wi-Fi services across the Wi-Fi ecosystem, said that it will be testing several use cases on a Wi-Fi 6 network at Mettis Aerospace’s 27-acre facility in West Midlands starting in the second half of 2019.

Use cases under consideration include multi-stream live video monitoring, real time energy monitoring, ultra-reliable low latency communications with sensors on critical systems, and augmented reality.

UK-based Mettis Aerospace designs and manufactures precision-forged, machine and sub-assembled components, primarily for the aerospace and defense industry. Its clients include Airbus, Boeing, and Rolls-Royce.

WBA said the West Midlands region was selected as the UK’s 5G Testbed for manufacturing and security by the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.

The trials, managed by the WBA and Mettis Aerospace, and supported by WBA members including British Telecom, Boingo, Broadcom, BSG Wireless, CableLabs, Cisco, HPE Aruba and Intel, will demonstrate the role of Wi-Fi 6 in the broader 5G ecosystem and will serve as an example to industrial manufacturers moving to industry 4.0.

Key points from the blog include:

• AR technology is fundamentally changing manufacturing
• How well companies embrace and adapt to massive changes in manufacturing is crucial to their future
• 28 % of companies surveyed in a recent PwC study reported that they have implemented, piloted, or planned to implement AR and/or VR technology
• The value of AR and VR solutions are seen as maintenance, service, and quality assurance
• Other key areas of efficiency of AR in manufacturing are self-learning and training
• The learning from the PwC studies aligns with what Atheer is seeing from the strategic planning efforts of their customers

Augmented Reality (AR) is rapidly growing and expanding into countless business and industrial applications.

Spatial computing is used as a broad term to describe the way humans interact with computers in the same surrounding. In other words, in spatial computing machines occupy the same space as humans rather than being contained to one single location.

According to Markets and Markets, the Augmented Reality market is expected to reach $60,55 billion worldwide by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 40.29 percent during the forecast period comprised between 2018 and 2023. Increasing interest and investments from top technology giants are directly linked to driving the growth of the AR market.

Overall, the AR software market will lead the growth by 2023 thanks to the increasing use of smartphones, tablets, and other devices in consumer, commercial, and enterprise used for the implementation of the AR technology.

While there is an increasing demand for AR in healthcare, retail, and e-commerce, there is plenty of emerging opportunity and increasing demand for AR in architecture and the enterprise industry.

AR is a game changer applicable in almost every industry sector.

The article moves on to discuss smart city planning and building with the use of Augmented Reality technology.

In the construction industry, for instance, immersive technology can help in the development of smart cities with Augmented Reality becoming an integral part of the construction process.

Cities collect huge amounts and data. Augmented Reality can make that data visible. Using AR, architects can find a more creative and straightforward way to show urban planners how their projects are going to look like in real life by creating an engaging visualization, triggering faster decision making.

It can be building a new transportation center or the next skyscraper in a city; in all cases using Augmented Reality makes the job easier.

Now with the help of Augmented Reality platforms for business, it is easy to design smart city projects. WakingApp is a professional Augmented Reality studio that enables professionals such as builders and architects to leverage budding technology. Projects can be visualized before building it which avoids a lot of mistakes.

What is interesting about the WakingApp technology is that developers and designers don’t need to have any previous coding experience in order to take advantage of the toolset. They can rapidly create quality AR experiences to showcase construction projects with even a limited amount of coding experience.

The MLM Group, an engineering, environmental, and building control design consultancy was able to transform its presentations by using WakingApp AR technology to showcase their projects to customers beyond the blueprint using the AR Studio.

“Augmented Reality experiences add cost-saving value to construction projects and make the entire building process more efficient because right from the start, engineers and architects are able to create a detailed, interactive example of the end project,” Matan Libis, CEO of WakingApp told Interesting Engineering.

“AR provides builders, and their clients, with a level of understanding that far exceeds any blueprints or 3D models, and often AR experiences can be created in a fraction of the time, offering users both practicality and efficacy,” he said.

Microsoft’s Mixed Reality HoloLens headset can bring 2D blueprints to life. In the construction site, workers can combine 3D models with real time data. They can see problems and faults in the real world and fix them before ahead of building.

This speeds up construction processes and elevates the quality of the end product. Using this technology construction workers can elevate their skills to a new level, augmenting their knowledge and using it to make better decisions.

This report also displays the 2013-2025 production, Consumption, revenue, Gross margin, Cost, Gross, market share, CAGR, and Market influencing factors of the Augmented Reality (AR) industry in USA, EU, China, India, Japan and other regions.

Key players mentioned in the report include Google, Microsoft, Vuzix, Samsung Electronics, Oculus Vr, Eon Reality, Infinity Augmented Reality, Magic Leap, Blippar, Daqri, Htc, Playstation and Avegant.

Augmented Reality (AR) Market Analysis by Regions: Each geographical region is analyzed as Sales, Market Share (%) by Types & Applications, Production, Consumption, Imports & Exports Analysis, and Consumption Forecast.

Augmented Reality (AR) Market Analysis by Types: Each Type is studied as Sales and Market Share (%), Revenue (Million USD), Price, Gross Margin and more similar information.

Augmented Reality Glasses, Augmented Reality Display and Other.

Links:

Original source article.

Sample copy of the report.

The lion’s share of media attention sometimes appears to focus solely on the slowly-improving hardware capabilities of virtual reality and augmented reality headsets. Of course, getting the hardware engineering right is crucial for enthusiasts in this niche industry.

Like any new computer electronics hardware device, the potential capabilities are encapsulated and presented to the public in the form of enhanced or additional features, like a wider Field-of-View (FoV), or foveated rendering. But the lack of software applications for any emerging technology, including augmented reality and virtual reality headsets, is a hapless bottleneck to a wider scale adoption by enterprise, let alone consumer markets. And software is much more difficult to create for virtual reality and augmented reality. But bottlenecks are unavoidable in product development, especially of high technology.

for virtual reality and augmented reality companies this year, winning enterprise accounts is the main goal. But software applications for virtual reality and augmented reality are far and few between. And though this is natural for an emerging hardware technology, the scarcity also doubles as a bottleneck for wide-scale adoption.

The article looks through what is Open XR and what does OpenXR 0.90 do?  The article concludes with the following summary statements:

Emerging technologies like AR and VR need time for development, and open standard organizations like OpenXR are trying to make it easier for developers to close the gap between touted potential and actualized potential.

Creating standards like Open XR 0.90 is an ongoing process, and universalizing development comes with it’s own costs. Certain data attributes will be lost in the attempt to standardize, so we’ll just have to wait and see how things develop.