By: Karan Balkar, Sr. Specialist, Digital Engineering, LTIMindtree

Over the last decade, immersive technologies have gained traction by redefining how businesses deliver their products and services to end users. From overlaying digital images on a user’s environment to creating a “new reality” where the user can interact with virtual objects, immersive technologies have come a long way. One of the new additions to this space has been the advent of mixed reality.

What is Mixed Reality?

Mixed Reality (MR) is an amalgamation of AR (Augmented Reality) and Virtual Reality (VR). For example, imagine surgeons performing critical surgeries through a hands-free interface, or say, an architect trying to showcase building designs by combining physical and digital elements. These could be just some of the ways through which you can experience mixed reality.

Advantages of Mixed Reality

Since mixed reality can help create an immersive experience, there are many potential benefits of this technology across various industrial sectors. For example, mixed reality can help reduce employee-training costs by one-third using virtual objects, in the oil and gas space. On the other hand, in the manufacturing space, mixed reality can help increase the first-time fix rate and reduce the time spent diagnosing the root cause of an equipment failure. It is estimated to bring about a 30% decrease in effort and time for issue resolution.

They say – “Seeing is believing.” Have you ever got an opportunity to experience mixed reality? Today, several headsets are available that allow users to experience mixed reality. Let’s talk about a few of them, along with their possible use cases:

• • The Microsoft HoloLens is one of the well-known mixed-reality devices that can be used to project holograms for training and education purposes. For instance, one can conduct a course on digital marketing using mixed reality. In healthcare, superimposing 3D views of MRI images and CT scans using mixed reality can assist doctors before and during surgery.
  • The Dimension NXG AjnaLens is mainly used for displaying virtual objects for defense and security purposes, say, for instance, battlefield surveillance.
  • The Holoboard allows users to experience mixed reality in real-time by capturing photos and videos within a 360-degree field of view.

At present, global enterprises have leveraged mixed reality mostly in terms of providing guided maintenance and training-based solutions to on-site service technicians. For instance, through an MR-based application, service technicians can view the 3D model of the equipment, identify the various parts, and get information about them. The solution not only helps to provide a quicker understanding of the complex parts but also eliminates the need for paper-based manuals. The Microsoft HoloLens device allows the technician to be hands-free, and at the same time, interact with the surroundings using virtual 3D objects or holograms. In addition, since the Hololens device runs Windows 10 under the hood, we have also leveraged Cortana speech recognition for ease of navigation.

Summary

Today, mixed reality has paved the way for organizations to create immersive experiences for their customers. As many of the use cases for mixed reality are still in testing phases, they give an idea of what might be possible and help organizations understand the potential impact of new technologies as well as the business opportunities they bring. In the future, one can foresee a lot of reusable components and frameworks being developed around mixed reality that can help accelerate the entire development process.