The third edition of the VR_Sci Fest took off this past Friday at KTH and Tekniska Museet.
Immersive technology is hot these days, and the festival focused on use cases for immersive
technology in science and R&D areas, rather than games. Two fields that show great promise
and useful applications for this type of technologies.
KTH Executive School went to see what all the fuzz was about, and we met some interesting
people working with immersive technology. Among the companies that showed their tech at
the festival were Scania, Intel, Tobii and many more.
We talked with Scania and they showed us how they have created a VR (virtual reality)
application which allows you to collaborate with your colleagues in virtual reality. You can
show the latest design sketches of a truck engine and examine it up close by making the
whole design bigger or smaller and even remove parts from the engine in the virtual space.
The use cases for this type of collaborations are limitless. We got the chance to talk to a member of the Scania team that worked with this project, which you can see in the video below
(audio is in Swedish).
During the day, there were also many talks about immersive technology from leading
companies and professors. Scott W. Greenwald (Ph.D.) from MIT Materials Research Lab
talked about using VR in science as a form of creating new learning experiences, which are
exploratory instead of linear. Immersive technology as a form of enhancing studying and
learning marks the paradigm shift that we are currently in, as learning goes from the classical
textbook into the virtual arena.
Another interesting field for immersive technology is AR (augmented reality). SketchARshowed a really cool concept where you could use a HoloLens, a drawing board and a pen, to
create stunning drawings of everything from animals to buildings. The use cases here are
almost endless as well, taking drawing to the next level. Imagine architects in a few years
using augmented reality as their primary tool to create sketches of buildings and houses.
