Verizon’s pre-commercial 5G technology runs mixed reality on 5G successfully
Imagine walking through a building that you are designing long before the structure has been built. You’re able to see what your design looks like, down to the doorknobs, and how it feels to walk in the space.
Touring alongside you are other members of the design team discussing aspects of design in real time with you. You see a representation of each of them — where they are standing and what they are looking at in real time. In reality, you and your colleagues may not even be in the same country, let alone the same room.
This kind of experience is what startup Arvizio specializes in. The company devised a mixed reality (MR) platform that uses Microsoft HoloLens headsets to help customers to visualize and collaborate in design in a multiuser format. Founded in October 2016 by experts in spatial data analysis, lidar spatial data processing and plant control systems, the Ottawa, Ontario-based Arvizio pours computer-aided design and lidar information into its MR system and delivers the images as a 3D virtual environment to multiple users in real time.
“To make that kind of synchronized experience where you’re loading 3D models in real time across the network requires high-speed connectivity and requires low latency,” Jonathan Reeves, CEO of Arvizio told RCR Wireless News. “That’s what drew us to the work going on at the Alley.”
Arvizio has been using Verizon’s pre-commercial 5G network at Verizon’s 5G Incubator at NYC Alley in Manhattan, to test its data-heavy product over 5G. “We wanted to demonstrate that this kind of experience could be done — not external Wi-Fi as it is done today but, in the future, could be done over extended distances using 5G,” said Reeves.
It’s easy to see that 5G will be key to Arvizio’s business model. When Arvizio announced it could support multiple users earlier this year, the choice of network delivery system was a combination of Wi-Fi for local collaborations — where the teams using the system were in the building or room — and fixed wired infrastructure when multiple users were remotely dispersed. The company could deliver its product on existing networks without 5G but is finding that the new technology offers advantages.
At Alley during Arvizio’s 5G tests, “we started off basically trying a single user experience and a single user over 5G. Of course, it ran extremely well and very low latency,” said Reeves. “We then doubled up, tripled up, and quadrupled up, so we’ve seen three or four users work nearly every bit as effectively over the 5G network as would run over a Wi-Fi connection today. And now of course [with 5G], we’re not tied to the hot spot.”
Lidar was a key test because the files are huge.
“Lidar is a particularly interesting source of data,” said Reeves. “The [lidar]point clouds that are produced by the lidar scanner absolutely massive.” Pushing those huge lidar files around networks requires high bandwidth and low latency. 5G seemed to handle the lidar files well.
Another aspect of the need for high data rates is the fact that with multiple users, data must be replicated for each headset.
“There’s an awful lot of data that has to be sent from servers to the devices and If there are multiple people that are sharing this experience — you know, three or four of you in a session, for example — that data has to be sent three or four times to each of the individual headsets,” said Reeves.
LTE was not as helpful with a multi-user environment with granular detail. Reeves described how an MR model is like a Google Earth-type scenario, where viewers are zooming in to finer and finer detail, in 3D.
“What we find with LTE is you can do this for a single user,” said Reeves. “You know you can push the model and you can get a pretty good experience for one user, but when you take that step to wanting multiple users and wanting a collaborative experience, then you can’t do it using LTE. For that you need 5G.”
About mixed reality
Arvizio sells mixed reality systems (MR) and services to enterprise. Architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), industrial, healthcare and education are naturals for this type of technology.
“[Mixed reality] is one of the most exciting areas because it brings together the real world and then overlays the real world with sort of advanced types of 3D information,” said Reeves. He describes mixed reality as lying between augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). “It allows you to bring in the real world and overlay it with holographic images to create a whole new type of experience.”
VR is an immersive experience that transports you to another place, typically requiring a user to wear a headset. AR is mostly known in smartphones for apps that add an overlay on a real world image. MR uses VR techniques and hardware — those VR goggles — to put the overlay on the real-world view.
Arvizio imports 3D CAD drawings “fresh from the architects’ CAD system” and lidar data into software called MR Director. Arvizio accepts files produced by DotProduct hand held scanning devices, which capture 3D scenes in the form of point cloud models. These scans are commonly used in AEC and other industries. once ingested into MR Director, the drawings are accessible to multiple users and locations through its MR Studio platform.
Arvizio’s mixed reality service with multi-users appearing up as avatars. (Courtesy of Arvizio)
Reeves describes the result of all this data ingestion: making a virtual model that sits on a real conference room table and users can walk around it. Going one step further is exciting: “Make the model life-size and literally walk through the model,” as he put it. Add a real-time aspect: video and multiple participants who are in different locations, and that is when the computation gets heavy.
“To be able to then project that in three dimensions, have people walk around and view the volume from different sides, make the model life size … is really where it gets exciting. Make the model life size and literally walk through the model. You literally can walk through an at-scale rendition and while you’re doing so, not just a sort of a single person experience but other people can be walking through with you and you can converse with one another, talk about design, talk about features and changes so forth. So that’s a really powerful ability and given the scale and size of the things that architects architects and construction companies work with, you know that becomes very compelling,” Reeves said.
Mixed reality “is being driven pretty heavily by Microsoft. They’re pushing mixed reality technology and their HoloLens very aggressively,” said Reeves. Arvizio uses HoloLens goggles exclusively right now — “probably the most advanced device site currently in the market,” according to Reeves — but he also predicts that in the next 12 months, “we’re going to see other players coming into the market and a platform will be built that is not specifically tied to the HoloLens, but devices like that.” The devices will look more like glasses and have the wireless built in. They will also be cheaper. Right now, VR/MR headsets are in $3,000 range but coming down to a more affordable price point.
Arvisio embraces edge computing capabilities on the 5G architecture.
“More and more of the rendering functions, more and more of the caching of data and so forth will take place at those at edge server locations. So we think it’s a sort of a whole architecture thing that really makes this kind of experiences work effectively and unshackles us from the Wi-Fi hotspots,” said Reeves.
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