Tomorrow’s technology today

One movement of the hand is enough and there is a gaping hole in the wall that just seemed stable. Another wave and it’s gone. Gimmick? Absolutely. Sorcery? Not at all. Making virtual objects visible in the real world and interacting with them sounded like science fiction not long ago, but it is now reality – more precisely: “augmented reality”.

“Tomorrow’s technology today” – that is the vision of the innovative company Atrotech.  When Microsoft announced the “HoloLens” project in January 2015, software boss Bekim Kursoni was already following this exciting development with great interest. “Augmented reality is the future, I have no doubt about that,” says Kursoni. For this reason, Atrotech was directly involved in the Germany-wide launch of the “HoloLens” in October 2016. Since November, the company’s software developers have been working with the new hardware and testing the possibilities.

“Sooner rather than later, this technology will enter our everyday lives. The possibilities are limitless,” predicts Kursoni. In fact, the new technology is already finding numerous areas of application. From interior designers to the automotive industry to neurosurgery, the new technology could make the lives and work of countless people easier and better.

The history of augmented reality is long. One could consider the introduction of 3D glasses in cinemas in the 1950s as a first step in this direction; they symbolized the desire to make the imagination on the screen a little more real, long before computers found their way into the home .

The video game industry, for its part, recognized early on the potential of allowing players to fully immerse themselves in a virtual world. Initial attempts, such as the VirtualBoy developed by Nintendo in 1995, were innovative, but ultimately failed due to the state of the art. The devices were too big and too heavy, the screens were too weak, they caused “motion sickness”, i.e. dizziness and nausea, due to the discrepancy between the movement seen and the movement experienced.

For some time it seemed as if the “virtual reality” project had failed. But new technologies opened up new avenues. An old idea received new impetus. In addition to current projects such as the “HTC Vive” and the better-known “Oculus Rift”, tech giant Microsoft also finally threw its hat into the ring in the form of the “HoloLens”.

Unlike the gaming-focused companies, however, Microsoft did not design glasses for virtual reality, but for augmented reality. The difference is simple: Virtual reality means immersion in a completely artificially created environment, while “augmented reality” simply expands reality with virtual components and is therefore also suitable for everyday use. Three-dimensional models, program interfaces and the like can be displayed interactively in space.

This would allow surgeons to observe current scans of their patients during the operation, service technicians to display relevant machine data and architects to simulate their designs so they are within reach.

Atrotech, however, has its own ideas about how the “HoloLens” and its future iterations could benefit customers. Kursoni explains:

“The long-term vision is clear: the systems we are designing will be equipped with a ‘HoloLens’. Service electronics technicians at large companies look after an almost unmanageable number of systems. Normally he would first have to read the e-plan in order to start working. The ‘HoloLens’ could save him this step and show him details about components, data and defects. Wear parts could be highlighted and their current status viewed. Operation would be intuitive and uncomplicated.”

The first thing to do now is to familiarize yourself with the material and its possibilities. A technical demonstration and presentation for end customers is already in progress and is planned for the first half of 2017. Kursoni is confident:

“We are pleased to have been involved from the start. It’s exciting pioneering work.”