To consumers, augmented and mixed reality applications often take the form of visually rich playgrounds or immersive gaming. This week, Techopia Live took at look at the enterprise side of AR/MR tech with Arvizio, an Ottawa-based company that sees mixed reality as an emerging environment for collaboration.
Arvizio utilizes AR/MR headsets such as Microsoft’s HoloLens to create shared experiences for users working in the architecture and construction sectors. Colleagues, experts or customers can remotely join the designer in a virtual space to put digital renderings overtop existing infrastructure.
Founder and president Alex Berlin told Techopia Live that the software is advanced enough to create an entire bridge, scale it up to actual size and see how it would fit across a river, for example.
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“It is truly amazing. It opens up completely new type of applications,” he said.
“I’ve been working on several startups in the Ottawa area for a number of years. This one is an exciting venture.”
Joining Berlin at Arvizio are his partners from previous firms, CEO Jonathan Reeves (CloudLink) and chief technical officer Borys Vorobyov (Ambercore Software).
Berlin told Techopia Live that the Arvizio platform can help to plan projects previously thought impossible and improve operational efficiency by anticipating design obstacles before construction begins.
“It generates enormous savings if it works for your use case,” he said.
The startup has some big names behind it. It’s been named an official mixed reality partner of Microsoft, who Berlin cites as a leader in AR/MR commercialization. Arvizio is also one of six companies accepted to Verizon’s 5G innovation lab in New York, the only Canadian startup in the bunch.
The coming advent of 5G networks will substantially affect the AR/MR space, Berlin said. The low latency and high bandwidth enabled by 5G will allow for truly simultaneous shared reality through wireless headsets.
Berlin expects the “turning point,” where AR/MR goes mainstream, to come within the next year. When network technology catches up to Arvizio’s vision, mixed reality will be closer to our reality than ever before.
To hear more of Berlin’s thoughts on the coming AR/MR revolution, watch the video above.
