There's a writeup here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/24/spatial-raises-8-million-t... (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18292217).
Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
11–20 of 44 posts
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#12Looks like a serious attempt at an ambitious concept. I love how the video showcases what seems to be an actual working prototype, with its capabilities and imperfections – as opposed to the usual trend of AR 'demo' videos that are actually just mockups, and completely unrealistic ones at that (as seen with Google Glass, Pokemon Go, and Magic Leap, just from memory.) I'm curious about the hardware. Is there a base st…
Spatial doesn't appear to have any dedicated hardware. It seems to be an app that you use on whatever AR/VR gear you happen to have lying about.
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I can tell, both sides are using AR goggles. They just don't show the goggles on avatars of remote peers, which aren't real video but just posed 3D models customized to (somewhat) match the corresponding user's real appearance.
Right, so I guess my question is: The remote users don't have the benefit of being in the same room as the rest of the group. The AR people/objects wouldn't likely "fit" into their physical world. Like in the initial demo video (2 guys sitting, 1 woman standing near Kanban board) -- What does she see from her perspective? It feels to me like the "host" participants can use AR but anyone remote would need to be using…
It's not explained clearly, but I believe the same AR elements are mapped into different environments. One user's wall may not be in the same place as another's, but they would both have the same content.
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#14Anywhere in AR? Will this work in my cabin in Arkansas with no electricity?
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#15A powerful use of low cost AR/VR, which I don't see a lot of people pursuing, would be to 3D render building plans while displaying feeds from smartphone cameras as "viewports" inside the rendered building. This could be used to very quickly get information from people onsite to experts and decision makers, with more easily displayed and digested contextual information. This could also be used in the building of large machines as well.
A lot of the challenge in this sort of technical communication is conveying the Point of View of the person onsite. We have the technology now, so why not just render it?
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#16Anywhere in AR? Will this work in my cabin in Arkansas with no electricity?
If you have an Oculus Go and a Wi-Fi hotspot, and can come up with a way to charge them both, and you get 4G signal there... Sure, why not?
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#17A powerful use of low cost AR/VR, which I don't see a lot of people pursuing, would be to 3D render building plans while displaying feeds from smartphone cameras as "viewports" inside the rendered building. This could be used to very quickly get information from people onsite to experts and decision makers, with more easily displayed and digested contextual information. This could also be used in the building of larg…
There are companies that have been doing this for a while. I think you are slightly overestimating the capabilities of the technology, but largely overestimating the demand for this stuff over the way things are traditionally designed/built/inspected. It's not a killer use case that is forcing architecture/design/manufacturing firms to adopt the tech or die...it's currently still in gimmick stage, but is getting better slowly but surely
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#18I love that people are investing time and money to make this happen. From my point of view, remote collaboration might make more sense in VR than in AR, though. AR tech is much harder than VR, and with today's AR headsets this kind of thing is not really usable. However with today's VR tech, it's fun! What is the rationale to make this happen in AR here? Is the physical location important for remote collaboration?
In lots of situations, there are 3 or 4 people in one location and one or two remote people joining. With current VR tech, in order to make this happen you'd have to have 4 beefy laptops with Windows MR headsets in the meeting room. People wouldn't be able to see their local collaborators faces, drink a glass of water, or sit in a chair. With AR, the local peole can all see each other and conduct a meeting, while also seeing AR people at the table with them.
Additionally, we have all of these devices (laptops, phones) that we'll continue to use for the foreseeable future. VR forces you into a single mode where using your phone is impossible. AR lets you do more of a hybrid approach.
Long term I agree that VR will have more benefits (especially if you had hybrid ar/vr glasses), but in the near term it has too many drawbacks to be useful for collaborative productivity sessions like this.
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#19Looks like a serious attempt at an ambitious concept. I love how the video showcases what seems to be an actual working prototype, with its capabilities and imperfections – as opposed to the usual trend of AR 'demo' videos that are actually just mockups, and completely unrealistic ones at that (as seen with Google Glass, Pokemon Go, and Magic Leap, just from memory.) I'm curious about the hardware. Is there a base st…
There's no other hardware required. It's just hololens and magic leap (plus other devices like iPhone, laptop).
Hololens and Magic leap both have hand tracking, so the device knows if you are putting your hand up (and has some sense of its position and orientation), plus head pose.
"Sway" on device is actually more minimal that what you're seeing in the video.
Re: Spatial – Collaborate from anywhere in AR
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, so I guess my question is: The remote users don't have the benefit of being in the same room as the rest of the group. The AR people/objects wouldn't likely "fit" into their physical world. Like in the initial demo video (2 guys sitting, 1 woman standing near Kanban board) -- What does she see from her perspective? It feels to me like the "host" participants can use AR but anyone remote would need to be using…
It's not explained clearly, but I believe the same AR elements are mapped into different environments. One user's wall may not be in the same place as another's, but they would both have the same content.
Correct. Walls are mapped to each other, so if you are looking at your wall in location A and putting a shared screen there, it is also on my wall at location B.
There are some gnarly issues around this, of course, but Spatial has a pretty advanced approach that works in most cases.