With new disguise locations opening up around the world and a software interface available in multiple languages, disguise is accelerating the democratization of its xR workflow to meet the expanding appetite for xR, virtual production and virtual studios. Its acquisition of Atlanta-based immersive entertainment specialists Meptik will bolster the expansion. 

As a rapidly growing global player in the events, media and entertainment space, disguise is well placed to support a similar growth trajectory for Meptik, bringing their creative and technical expertise to all. Customers can expect a Meptik team with the latest technology in their back pocket, and an ever-growing global team of experts to support them on their creative journey.

While both companies will continue to operate as separate entities, disguise will be leveraging Meptik’s expertise to expand its global reach, helping creatives build the next generation of extended reality and metaverse experiences. Meptik’s teams will work with disguise to workshop new solutions, create product roadmaps and drive new standards in entertainment technology.

[ Disguise’s Latest r21 Software Release Enhances Production Workflows ]

Defining What’s Next for xR, AR, MR and VP

Meptik specializes in creating dynamic virtual worlds that blow audiences away—and keeps them coming back. Their clients range from film studios to lifestyle brands, Fortune 500s, musical artists and more.

Combining creative chops with technical skills, Meptik is always working behind the scenes to define what’s next for extended reality (xR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual production (VP). Led by Sarah Linebaugh and Nick Rivero, their team of experts deliver groundbreaking projects for filmmakers and broadcasters as well as remarkable corporate and immersive installations.

xR technology unleashes storytelling potential by delivering photorealistic, three-dimensional, real-time graphics that immerse performers and audiences alike in a virtual world visible on set and in-camera.

disguise’s market-leading extended reality (xR) workflow has, in the past two years alone, enabled over 600 xR productions in over 50 countries, powering live entertainment productions for music artists such as Katy Perry and Billie Eilish, film and episodic TV productions for Netflix and Amazon Prime, corporate presentations for Siemens and Verizon and live broadcast programs from Eurosport, MTV and ITV.

Meptik will also use its unique combination of creative and technical expertise to aid disguise in its mission to empower game-changing virtual experiences at the intersection of physical and virtual worlds.

Left Brain / Right Brain

“We have always prided ourselves on our ability to service both sides of the xR equation the creative and the technical—and we love creating dynamic virtual worlds that blow audiences away,” said Nick Rivero, co-founder of Meptik. “Joining forces with disguise will enhance our ability to continue to serve our clients from start to finish while maintaining our down-to-earth spirit.”

“Meptik has been a trusted partner of disguise for many years, growing to excel at bringing out the very best capability for disguise solutions. Given that we have both been, in the past two years, bringing extended reality and immersive entertainment to the world, this acquisition would expand on these efforts and lead the next era for extended reality and metaverse experiences,” said disguise CEO Fernando Küfer.

According to new research by global tech market advisory firm ABI Research, nearly 28 million augmented and mixed reality smart glasses will ship in 2026, while the total global AR/MR market will surpass $175 billion in the same year. This growth and demand are spread across both enterprise and consumer, with gradual but steady enterprise demand meeting with accelerating consumer activity in the next few years.

“Major tech players across hardware, software, and services look familiar in the consumer space, contributing to strong and consistent overall growth,” said Eric Abbruzzese, research director for ABI Research. Apple, Facebook, Google, Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft, and others are all already investing significantly in AR. “Those big tech names, with active investment and product ranging from already available, to announced, to all-but-announced, are creating a consumer AR market that will be dynamic and welcoming rather than struggling and immature.”

[Tech Trends That WON’T Happen in 2021]

Even though consumer hype dominates headlines, enterprise adoption of augmented reality continues at a respectable pace of 66 percent CAGR through 2026 (compared to 100 percent or greater CAGR for some consumer verticals). Early value shown in remote assistance, training, and knowledge capture skyrocketed alongside COVID, where remote worker enablement became a requirement rather than a value add. Not all that interest converted to adoption immediately, with some expected hesitancy around novel investment, but that interest is only strengthening even as the pandemic begins to wane. Enterprise AR platforms from the likes of PTC, Teamviewer, RE’FLEKT, and ScopeAR are both competing and cooperating with increased in-house efforts from companies entering the space with broader digitization efforts as well as more focused immersive goals.

No matter the market, binocular and mixed-reality HMDs will be the headline in terms of growth rate, with nearly 130 percent CAGR for mixed reality glasses compared to 60 percent for augmented reality glasses. Declining prices, strengthened by fresh consumer hardware competition that needs to be affordable, along with greater competitive choice and software opportunity, make mixed reality solutions the more desirable offering on average. Some targeted use cases, especially around industrial verticals and applications, will remain focused on monocular products thanks to well-developed sales and implementation channels, safety and certification needs, and often simpler implementation and usage requirements.

[Future Vision: Volvo Tests New Car Designs by Driving With an XR Headset]

“Augmented reality has seen its share of ups and downs, but the combination of enterprise and consumer uptake, along with hardware support across smart glasses and mobile devices from heavy tech hitters and platform enablers, creates a compelling market picture overall,” Abbruzzese said. “Challenges in price and implementation remain, as do questions around ultimate value for new use cases for consumers, but early and ongoing investment in the space is addressing these challenges. This early market maturity keeps consumer promising, high value worker enablement maintains enterprise value, and so the outlook for AR is robust.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Augmented and Mixed Reality Market Data: Devices, Use Cases, Verticals, and Value Chain market data report. This is part of the company’s Augmented and Virtual Reality research service, which includes research, data, and analyst insights. Market Data spreadsheets are composed of deep data, market share analysis, and highly segmented, service-specific forecasts to provide detailed insight where opportunities lie.

Through deep analysis of both key players and technologies, IDTechEx’s most recent report—Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality 2020-2030: Forecasts, Markets and Technologies—can provide readers with the trends this market will face in the coming decade.

The report covers one of the key markets of the future: the AR/VR/MR market. VR, MR, and AR products are used in many different settings, for example, for day-to-day workflow management, and on production lines.  This market, which IDTechEx forecasts predict to be over $30Bn by 2030, will impact many different industries, and future innovations will continue its growth in the wearables market. 

The report reviews and analyses over 100 products and details of over 80 companies to create succinct and detailed conclusions about the future of this market. This market research report includes market forecasts, player profiles, investments, and comprehensive company lists are all provided.

The company has also created a second report—Optics and Displays in AR, VR, and MR 2020-2030: Technologies, Players and Market—that offers a concise overview of the markets of optics and displays in both the AR/MR and VR technologies. It includes the forecasts for both the optical and display markets in AR/MR and VR markets. The current state of these markets is discussed and analyzed with long-range forecasts from 2020-2030 for revenue and volume by technology in AR/MR Optics, VR Optics, AR/MR micro-displays, and VR micro-displays.

For more information on both these market research reports, email research@IDTechEx.com or visit IDTechEx.com/Research/WT.

The What: Industrial-grade VR/XR developer Varjo has introduced real-time chroma keying and marker tracking as early access features for its XR-1 Developer Edition headset. An industry-standard technique known as “green-screening” used in broadcasting and film, Varjo is the first company to deliver chroma keying in real-time for mixed reality devices. With marker tracking, professional users can instantly anchor any virtual objects to the real world using printable visual markers.

[Varjo and Lenovo Partner on Advanced XR Computing for Enterprises]

The What Else: Chroma keying is particularly beneficial for professional workflows where aligning virtual content accurately with the physical world is crucial. Users can now easily define parts of reality, identify them with color, and replace them with virtual models or scenery without heavy development costs. With chroma key, virtual content also occludes with real-world objects or hands, allowing intuitive interactions. Using Varjo’s object tracking with visual markers, professionals can make virtual objects appear exactly where they want them in their surroundings. Example use cases include:

• Conduct training and simulation: A pilot can sit in a replica of a plane or helicopter cockpit and be able to look outside and see oneself flying in an ultra-immersive visual scenery, while operating physical cockpit controllers for realistic training. Chroma keying also enables multi-user training scenarios.
• Design the products of tomorrow: An automotive designer can sit in a car and replace parts of the interior with designs that are not yet built in reality with the click of a button. Designers can also collaborate in an immersive mixed reality space, interacting with virtual models and making changes to them in real-time, or virtually “dress” 3D prints to look like material-finished products.
• Run academic, clinical, and commercial research: Researchers can conduct studies inside life-like mixed reality, simultaneously combining virtual and real world elements into the research environment. The subjects can hold virtual products or instruments in their hands and interact with them.

“Since its commercial launch in December 2019, Varjo’s XR-1 Developer Edition has quickly become the most demanded mixed reality product for professional users, transforming the way companies train, design, and conduct research in immersive environments,” said Urho Konttori, chief product officer and co-founder of Varjo. “When our customers asked us to create a seamless solution for blending the real and virtual worlds, we immediately jumped to the challenge. We’re excited to introduce real-time chroma keying and object tracking to our customers just three months after the first deliveries of the XR-1, enabling absolute immersion inside mixed reality.”

The Bottom Line: Together, chroma keying and marker tracking allow enterprise customers to seamlessly integrate virtual and real worlds, interact with photorealistic virtual content as they would in real life, and achieve pixel-perfect accuracy and occlusion inside mixed reality. Demo videos showcasing the power of chroma keying and marker tracking are available here.

Both chroma keying and marker tracking are available in early access to all users of the XR-1 Developer Edition headset. 

SMPTE, the organization whose standards work has supported more than a century of advances in entertainment technology and whose membership spans the globe, announced the program lineup for the daylong SMPTE 2018 Symposium, "Driving the Entertainment Revolution: Autonomous Cars, Machine Intelligence, & Mixed Reality." The Oct. 22 event will take place at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles leading into the SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition (SMPTE 2018).

"To some degree, SMPTE has been laying a lot of the groundwork for this topic over the past few years of the Symposium. Topics have ranged from improved picture, improved sound, and the future of storytelling, all the way to artificial intelligence and machine learning last year," said SMPTE 2018 Symposium Chair Michael Zink, VP of technology at Warner Bros. "This year really takes all of those pieces and puts them together in order to create this ultimate immersive experience, examining current market trends and highlighting significant in-car technology and entertainment advances, including the latest developments in autonomous driving, glass and display technologies, as well as connectivity."

The morning session titled "How Today's Tech Advances Will Drive Future Opportunity" will explore how recent advancements in multiple technologies — autonomous cars, machine intelligence, and mixed reality — have positioned the mobility sector for significant transformation. This first session will provide an overview of the current market, predictions for developments in the next few years, and insights into potential opportunities for media and entertainment companies to develop new experiences for the mobile environment.

Intel Automated Driving Group Senior VP Douglas Davis will present the keynote, titled "Safety Today for the Autonomous Tomorrow." He will focus on the potential of autonomous vehicles to save lives by reducing or eliminating human error on the roads. He also will discuss how consumers' embrace of such vehicles will give rise to a massive new passenger economy and, in turn, drive change across a variety of industries.

Following the keynote, the session titled "How Innovative Content Applications Will Fuel In-Car Entertainment" will likewise examine opportunities arising from consumer adoption of autonomous vehicles. Panelists will discuss how the concept of in-car entertainment will be redefined when passengers have far more time to consume entertainment content on the go. This Symposium session will highlight innovative ideas for content applications — from screen extensions to mixed reality — specifically designed for this new environment. Using real-life examples, it will provide a glimpse into what the in-car entertainment experiences of the future will bring.

The afternoon program will feature a session titled "How Cutting-Edge Tech Will Power Future Consumer Experiences." This session will highlight some of the most exciting developments enabling new entertainment experiences. Speakers will share their knowledge about the latest innovations in glass and display technologies, improvements in communication and electronics, advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics, and implementations of cutting-edge biometric sensors — all of which will be used to develop the best consumer experiences of the future.

"This year's Symposium will provide attendees with a fresh and uniquely rich perspective on the future of entertainment experiences," said SMPTE Education VP Richard Welsh, CEO of Sundog Media Toolkit. "We will be covering one of the most exciting and quickly evolving areas of the media and entertainment industry, which will undoubtedly be a huge area for growth in media. We are privileged to be joined by some of the industry's foremost experts, who will give us their insight into this fascinating and important emerging market segment!"

The Symposium is a favorite element of the SMPTE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition, the world's premier forum for the exploration of media and entertainment technology. Symposium registration is included with select SMPTE 2018 conference packages, either as an add-on or as a stand-alone registration. Early-bird rates for conference registration packages expire after Aug. 4.

At the 2018 NAB Show, SMPTE recorded a podcast in which Zink spoke about the Symposium. The podcast may be streamed here.

Further details and registration about the Symposium are available at smpte2018.org/symposium.html. Complete information about SMPTE 2018 is available at smpte2018.org.

Advanced Education has been named the Canadian distributor for Veative’s educational virtual reality (VR) solutions.

“Veative is a VR-focused education company that creates innovative VR curriculums at an affordable price point to transform how students are learning,” said Advanced executive vice president, Mark McPherson. “Veative is the first content provider in the space to develop an affordable and practical virtual reality solution for schools. It combines immersive and interactive education modules with plug-and-play virtual reality headsets and controllers. We are proud to bring their innovative technology to more K-12 schools in Canada than ever before!”

Veative is a global provider of education technology and learning simulations for schools and industries, using immersive technologies such as 3D, virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality. Curating an ever-growing STEM library—currently with over 450 modules—Veative works to engage students with concepts.

“Everyone is talking about VR right now, and many are worried that this is a fad. But we strive to show the importance of having this tool in the classroom, which allows focused attention on topics, and is a valuable part of the learning process. With learning modules mapped to the curriculum, we can deliver a powerful VR solution for K-12 schools that will engage students with concepts, closing the gap between knowledge and understanding,” Dave Dolan, Veative’s director of product management, noted. “Advanced Education is the perfect partner for us to bring our solutions, with modules in both English and French, to Canada’s classrooms. We know that our partnership will be successful based on their impressive track record in introducing new edtech solutions to K-12 classrooms across Canada.”

Virtual reality is not new. Simulation spaces such as CAVE (cave automatic virtual environment), and other simulators have been around for nearly two decades. However, the collective technologies that have traditionally gone into such largescale environments were astronomically expensive. But times are changing, and technology that was once reserved for those with the highest of budgets is making its way into all facets of everyday life—including delivering amazing up-close-and-personal experiences to enrich the learning experiences of fertile young minds.

For most schools, integrating virtual reality into the classroom is in its infancy. “It starts with building awareness,” said Maya Georgieva, co-founder at Digital Bodies, an immersive VR/AR/MR consulting group. A small number of students might have experienced Samsung’s Gear VR or Sony’s PlayStation VR headset, but the classroom experience is different.

Georgieva recommended schools first build an awareness about VR and AR outside of the classroom in an extracurricular activity. Then, employees can “think of ways these emerging technologies can connect to what are taking in place in the classroom. Often it is during these events that faculty see the potential of how the technology may connect to their areas of study, research, or classroom.”

Most places only have a small number of high-end VR headsets Georgieva noted. In these cases, other students in the class will see what the headset wearer is viewing on a video wall. “For me it’s not really about wiring every student in the classroom to have a headset on their face,” she said. “Where it is useful now is to enhance the learning experience by having students step into faraway places or witness something up close, and in some cases, being able to walk or interact with objects within the space. Then use these new experiences as an opportunity to enhance the classroom discussion bringing a unique perspective from having been there or stepped into somebody else’s shoes.”

Mixed reality (MR) is taking augmented reality to the next level. “When we talk about mixed reality, it is not only a digital overlay of contextual information, but one where digital objects are integrated into—and responsive to—the natural world and you can actively interact with them,” Georgieva said. This is where products such as Microsoft’s HoloLens and Magic Leap come into play.

Visualization technology, encompassing VR and MR, was cited in EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research’s Higher Education’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2017 report. “What they have in common is that they tap the brain’s inherent ability to rapidly process visual information, identify patterns, and sense order in complex situations,” the report noted.

AR/VR/MR have the ability to enable educators to create a personalized learning experience. “At its core that means that with these new immersive technologies, we are able to give students the opportunity to practice and fail safely,” Georgieva said. “Nothing really breaks in the virtual world the way it does in the physical world. We can respond to students individually and provide feedback to them contextually. This is where I think virtual and immersive technologies will play a huge role in the future of education.”