or “How to master the constraints of space & time”
XR stands for Extended reality. XR is also known as everything between our physical reality from augmented reality to full virtual reality. It is extending many capabilities of ours and will impact our private and work lives like hardly anything that we have seen in the past 20 years. In this article we will give a glimpse into how XR will impact how we will visit industries, museums, cultural heritage sites and even cities.
XR-Visits will be more common in the future than today’s “normal” visits. They will be virtual and/or augmented and allow you to ingest and understand much more of what you see than before. Therefore, they will be far more enriching and efficient than ever before.
Increase the value of the time & money you invest into a visit:
How often have you had an industrial visit, visited a museum or cultural heritage site without having understood half of what has been shown to you? And even more how much do you remember of it?
In short, how much did you take with you from your visit for the time & money you have invested?
Let’s see how XR can do better for you as a host and you as a visitor.
Let’s start with the example of industrial visits.
A traditional industrial visit is an expensive endeavor for the company that lets you visit their installations as they need to free a guide for you.
But it is also expensive for the visitor who spends real money & time for the travel and the visit.
A hosting company needs to free work time of the guide who will accompany you in two essential roles:
a) To guide your way through the industrial site in the safest way
b) To explain the different installations for you to understand the production
Now while your guide may be very good in his day job, it is not guaranteed that he is the best storyteller or pedagogue capable of transmitting the often abstract and complex concepts for you to understand.
This is where augmented and virtual reality will make a big difference.
Master the constraints of space & time with Virtual Teleportation.
Or simply put “Beam me up Scotty”:
Bring your sites to your visitors. Ensure they have a stunning and memorable 360° immersive visit. Not only your visitors will feel completely present in your site, but he will also have the best visit you can give him. The presence is so strong that many visitors will want to stand up to follow your guide even though they are experiencing the visit seated in a comfortable chair.
This quality experience is ensured because you will have made sure that for the production of the 360° immersive visit you have:
a) Worked with a competent partner to elaborate an efficient and memorable scenario
b) and a partner who knows how to film and produce immersive and potentially interactive content that makes it an enjoyable and interesting experience for the visitor
c) Selected the best narrator/guide to bring the content across
d) Augmented the immersive visit with explanatory close-up videos, animations, eventually even interactive 3D models.
What does it require for the visitor to see the experience? A smart phone & card board or a VR headset.
These are some of the benefits:
The benefits for the hosting company:
a) Save cost by only investing once for the content production vs having the cost of the guides work time for every single on-site visit
b) Scalability and access as you can offer as many visits as you want freed from the constraints of space, time and cost
c) Guaranteed best & constant quality of the visit
d) The most secure industrial visit imaginable
e) No risk of showing off secrets
f) A memorable visit for the visitor — produced for that purpose
g) Capability to propose a visit in any situation and at any time:
a. At industry fairs
b. During a sales discussion as a sales tool
c. During a simple conversation or first encounter
d. Possibly streamed from your website with secured access
h) Resource efficient:
a. The guide only needs to free his time for the content production, not for each visit
b. Better carbon footprint as no travel needed for the visit
The benefits for the visitor/ client:
a) Easy and affordable access to the industrial visit while saving travel cost & time
b) Truly understanding the content of the visit thanks to the good storytelling and the explanatory highlight augmentations
c) A business relationship and decisions made easy by immersion into what matters