Event Coverage

Who said VR is just for games? Intel is hell bent on reimagining the VR experience that you know today

By Vijay Anand - 5 Jan 2017

Who said VR is just for games? Intel is hell bent on reimagining the VR experience that you know today


 

Making amazing experiences possible

 

New pre-travel experiences in VR

Can you imagine sampling a new place that you’ve not visited before through a 360 video and actually re-positioning yourself around in real-time movement in any focus or direction at your will? Believe me, it was surreal. I could walk around objects or walk up to a daffodil to take a closer look or follow the sounds of the distant waterfall and walk towards it – much like a high quality FPS game such as Far Cry – the difference now is that I’m experiencing a live action VR exploration in a high fidelity 360 video capture that wasn’t pre-created/rendered/simulated. We wish we could have captured our experience but some things are just meant to be experienced and no video or article can truly express what we’ve felt. The closest we can point you to right now is the 15-minute mark of Intel’s fully recorded VR press session:-

This sort of experience requires tremendous horsepower and the video data needed to create all this is in the tune of 3GB per frame! HypeVR, a computer vision company focussed on developing ultra-high resolution live action VR capture and playback partnered with Intel to bring this demo about using HypeVR’s proprietary volumetric capture and playback engine to explore the Ban Gioc waterfall in Vietnam, one of the country’s most amazing natural sights.
 

Saving lives with VR and drones

In another demo, I was whisked away to perform a live industrial inspection through 360 video in 4K resolution facilitated by a drone loaded with  Orah 4i high-definition cameras and a low-power, high-latency computing solution that gathered the inspection data. And it wasn’t just me, it was 250 other folks in the conference room who inspected a 2,000-acre solar power plant in the Moapa River Indian Reservation. The ability to view such high resolution video in real time greatly aids dangerous inspection routines, search and rescue operations and much more. This has the power to transform the industry from the level of service quality, to saving the lives of the men and women who put themselves at risk daily.


Spectator sports from any seat through VR

Intel plans to bring VOKE VR to Oculus Rift later this year and will be among the first technology providers to enable live sporting experience on multiple VR devices.

What about watching a live sports event where you determine your preferred seat to view the game from the comfort of your home? Streamed using Intel’s VR technology, Intel CEO showcased the first such demo using a live sporting event that was underway. Intel is working to be among the first to enable such live sporting experience on multiple VR headsets.

 

Project Alloy and merged reality experiences take a step forward

Remember Intel’s Project Alloy that is an all-in-one merged reality headset that combines the horsepower of a PC and the numerous perception sensors for a truly untethered VR/AR/MR experience? To prove that the previous debut was no stunt, Intel and HypeVR’s volumetric video content was brought to showcase how far they’ve progressed the project. In the demo below, you can literally interact with others around you and convert your living room to a bona fide virtual war zone as you adorn the headset. Here’s a video clip to sum up this experience:-

In summary, expect game changing video and VR experiences in the coming years as technology (such as from Intel and its 7th generation Core processors) makes short work to bring about amazing new experiences.

Our experience at the Intel press conference was powered by new notebooks running Intel 7th gen Core processors with discrete graphics and Oculus Rift VR headset gear.

A sneak peek at the ballroom fully decked out with hundreds of VR experience stations!

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