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Nowadays, worldwide brands like Dior, Swarowski, and Ferragamo use virtual and augmented reality as a successful way to promote their items and attract clients who want to get more visual content and do sophisticated shopping.  Market Research Future predicts the increase of the cost of global virtual reality in retail to USD 20.9 billion by 2023. In this post, we will tell about XR solutions that influence retail success right now. How AR influences retail’s success and customer service AR technology is used in many fields of retail. Virtual try-on is one of them. It’s a technology which lets a customer “try on” one or a few virtual items. An AR app scans the body and face parameters to create more realistic item projections and improve other purchase recommendations. With AR technology, a customer has the possibility to create a full virtual look. It can help them to get a better understanding of whether this piece of clothes will suit them. In our previous post, we mentioned virtual try-on examples by Adidas and 3DLOOK.  MOSCOT has launched a virtual try-on where their customers can wear  3D models of glasses. According to the research, 61% of interviewed US customers said they preferred making purchases in shops with augmented reality services. The other 40% of customers said they are ready to pay more for an item if they see it in AR programs. Speaking about MOSCOT’s overall revenue, it increased by 174% after the launch of the AR try-on.   Providing customers with convenient shop navigation is another direction of the AR technology. More than 60% of interviewed Americans said they would like to use the AR technology to save the time they usually spend searching for a product. Augmented reality navigation gives a customer a more interesting, improved, and faster shopping experience. After scanning the special code on the floor, poster, or any other material object, a customer sees a virtual 3D arrow on a gadget screen, and this arrow leads them through the store. This technology also finds an exact location of a client with high accuracy. AR navigation is currently used in the ARKit app for iOS and ARCore for Android.  How VR works in retail Virtual reality in retail is applied for customer immersion in a virtual shop, which is a 3D copy of a real one. With this possibility, a customer can walk through the shop in VR glasses and add items to the basket.  Christian Dior also attracts clients with its VR elite cosmetics shop. Swarowski with the support of a Mastercard designed VR app, which lets customers register a Masterpass account and do online purchases of designer home items in the virtual shop. “At Mastercard, our goal is to provide consumers with the choice to shop when they want, how they want, in a manner that is as seamless and secure as possible”, said Linda Kirkpatrick, EVP of Merchants & Acceptance, Mastercard.  “This means that merchants need to be able to engage their customers across multiple, technology platforms – in-store, online, in-app, and via virtual and augmented reality”.  According to the statistics, every fifth American used VR technology, at least, once in a lifetime. Another 50% of Internet users said they take purchase decisions using VR shops. One of the secrets of the successful use of VR by retail companies is direct contact with customers who understand modern technologies. VR/AR retail apps examples Ferragamo designed a virtual boutique which recreates Italian villa rooms used as a set for filming «It’s Movie O’Clock» video for the Christmas campaign.  All three VR shop rooms contain clothes and accessories available online.  After you click on the chosen item, the window appears. It has the item’s price, characteristics, and other purchase recommendations. You can choose the right size of the item and its number, and add it to the cart. Moreover, you can see pictures on virtual walls. If you click on a picture, you can watch episodes of the original promotional video.  FindYourGlasses APP is one of our latest cases. This smartphone app lets customers try on virtual glasses before purchasing. FindYourGlasses scans a face to define its exact shape and proportions. And then, the program automatically chooses the most suitable models of glasses.   For this app, we customized our own algorithm based on geometry and proportions used by artists. This algorithm can define and predict the main traits of the face with an accuracy of more than 95%. And with the help of a face tracking module, virtual glasses stay exactly where they should be. Conclusion XR technology is in great demand in retail. With virtual and augmented reality, brands can encourage their customers to buy certain products and guarantee the most convenient and safe shopping.

Mental disorders cost the global economy approximately US $1 trillion per year as a loss of productivity. That data comes from Worldwide Health Organization which also predicts mental health conditions to become a disease burden to the worldwide community by 2030. These statistics cause concerns, and today numerous doctors will try to find a way to treat people’s mental health. XR technology usage is considered to be one of the prominent ways to cure anxiety, depression, and other disorders. COVID-19 influence on VR therapy development COVID-19 pandemic quite significantly influenced the minds of adults and children. So, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poll, more than 37% of schoolchildren said they struggled with anxiety, depression, and stress due to the pandemic.  In addition, the pandemic has contributed to changes in the format of healthcare facilities’ work. Due to the shut-down of schools and offices, offline psychotherapist visits respectively decreased to 70%. As of June 2020, remote mental health consultations increased up to 6558%. Actually, this is one of the factors in the AR and VR mental treatment development nowadays.  Kinds of VR mental health treatment 3.5% of Americans are proven to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder every year. It’s not only about war veterans, people of different races, ethnicities, and occupations face this problem. For the PTSD treatment, virtual reality is used for the recreation of situations where the traumatic event happened. During VR therapy, a patient is in a safe and controlled environment under the supervision of specialists who can stop the simulation or limit the negative impact of a trigger. According to the study, the first PTSD symptoms patients experience start to fade away in 3 months after the VR therapy.  Also, VR and AR are applied for phobia treatment. From 7 to 9% of people are afraid of snakes, spiders, and dogs. And 4% of people are suffering from claustrophobia, while 5% of patients are afraid of height. With the help of virtual and augmented reality, specialists can recreate deadly and terrifying situations in a controlled environment. For example, you can create a simulation of a ten-storey building, a forest fire, etc. If a patient is scared of insects and small animals like rats, spiders, and cockroaches, a psychotherapist can use mobile AR applications with 3D projections of objects a patient is afraid of. In 2021, Otago University in New Zealand successfully tested a new VR application, oVRcome, to treat different phobias. 129 volunteers aged from 18 to 54 years were treated with combined cognitive and VR therapy for 6 weeks. Test results indicated that phobia symptoms decreased to 75% in patients.  Examples of mental health applications For example, Recovery VR designed applications for calming the nervous system and meditation. The company offers these programs to clients: guided meditations — the program contains 20 guided meditations which can be done in 50 virtual locations like space, nature, psychedelic areas, etc. The main targets of the meditations are body relaxation, anxiety level reduction, pain decrease, and calming of the mind. Specialists recommend patients do some meditations before physical recovery training. By the way, Recovery VR also designed a number of VR apps for patients’ physical recovery, you can read about them here. nature therapy — with a VR headset, a patient can walk through tropical beaches, forests, or city quays. This app is perfect for bed patients or those who can’t walk outside. British company Enlighten, with the help of Staffordshire university, designed the mobile AR app Mental Health Mentor for high schoolers and college students. Every teenager aged 14-19 years old can scan the code placed on school diaries, posters, postcards, and other material stuff. Then, a student gets their own 3D-mentor, whose design was inspired by anime. An avatar’s image can be changed to look like a user, including all racial and ethnic-specific traits. A virtual mentor asks a student about their well-being and consults them on anxiety, depression, bullying, etc. Also, the mentor can recommend a mental help center and give a quick way to contact close friends, teachers, or parents. If a student feels devastated and has suicidal thoughts, the app with an AR mentor gives them an emergency call button to the mental help center. «We had this idea before the pandemic but by the time the project started, it seemed even more fitting, with the school closures and the uncertainty that young people have been facing. Stress levels are much higher than they would be normally, so I think it’s going to have a massive impact», Enlighten founder and director Suzanne Edwards told.  Conclusion Day by day, the need for XR technologies in mental health treatment is increasing. With the help of virtual and augmented reality, a patient can overcome fear in a fully controlled environment. Also, AR/VR gives them the possibility to relax with the immersion in a virtual simulation of a tropical beach or quiet forest. 

Today, students use different ways to consume information. YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok offer a new experience of interaction with content where visuals are prevailing:  short videos, social media posts, and other kinds of fast content. In 2022, more than a half of the Earth population uses social media. It also affects student achievement, since school schedules are mostly organized using methods designed long before the existence of modern social media.   That’s why AR and VR are gradually applying to educational institutions. These technologies  can simplify learning exact and humanitarian sciences and help modern generations to concentrate during lessons.  What’s wrong with traditional way of teaching Today, traditional ways of teaching are gradually losing their efficiency. Classic school schedule requires students to keep up with the teacher’s speech and writings on a blackboard. However, 74% of millennials and Gen Z said they were  constantly distracted by  other things during work and study. 36% of them said they spent more than two hours of their work and study time checking news feeds on smartphones. This is due to the fact that the information flow has significantly accelerated, and the whole world gradually transfers data in the digital world. Moreover, modern youth spends, on average,  less than a second on a web page if it’s not opening fast enough. Also, people usually keep 5 opened tabs in a browser for the second look. And, according to Time, the average internet user spends 15 seconds on a web page. It explains why modern children are losing interest in textbooks and slowly becoming demotivated at learning school subjects. Especially with the emergence of YouTube and TikTok that give children and teenagers fast information with bold and understandable visuals. That’s why internet medias like MTV, Mic, and Newsfeed are creating more video content and paying less attention to making longreads.  The way augmented and virtual reality help education Modern schools encourage students  to get educated with AR and VR technologies. According to statistics of science magazine Annals of Anatomy – Anatomischer Anzeiger, more than 80% of students felt more motivated to study after AR lessons.  These programs and applications make the studying process more interesting due to immersion in the virtual and augmented reality. With AR and VR, a student can see virtual molecules and planets, make a shot with a 16th century musket, and hear dinosaurs roar. Virtual trips to historical ages or the world of atoms and molecules can help students to understand a subject better and learn new skills. 93% of  students said they improved their knowledge of school subjects after AR classes.  Doctor Mihye Won, researcher and Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Curtin, said that VR programs for learning chemistry let students see and comprehend the molecular world. «VR gives a superior sense of what is happening in the molecular world – you can zoom in and out, and move around in an intuitive way. It makes it much easier to see molecular structures and key parts of a reaction, which is not done as well via other modes», said Won. Moreover, the virtual and augmented reality also gives a possibility to organize lessons both at school and at home. Remote lessons became more relevant when the  COVID-19 pandemic began. According to 2021-2022 statistics, 95% of British schools have all the necessary equipment for remote AR and VR lessons.). Also, 61% of education workers say the number of content for online studying will increase more than any kind of resources and technologies. AR and VR education apps There is a big number of AR and VR programs and applications which are designed to enhance studying for modern children and teenagers.  Virtual reality in history education BBC VR App is designed to immerse students into key historical events. The report of British radio correspondent Wynford Vaughan-Thomas from World War II is one of these events. Vaughan-Thomas made radio broadcast straight from British fighter plane,  which took part in bomb shelling of Nazi Germany in September 1943. Virtual simulation recreates the historical night from the sight of a VR headset user, who stays at a plane board during the whole trip. Also, there’s an original Vaughan-Thomas radio broadcast used in this app, where the journalist himself describes the raid to Germany as “the most beautifully horrible view I’ve ever seen”.  AR in mathematics and other school subjects  For those who have difficulties with learning exact sciences, MergeEdu developed the AR program Merge Cube to explore 3D figures. It’s a special cube, which interacts with smartphone applications and shows three-dimensional pictures on a gadget’s screen. With Merge Cube, a student can learn more about body parts, planets of the Solar System, geometrical figures, etc. AR objects can be zoomed in and out, and the program contains detailed information about them. Also, Merge Cube offers a possibility to play mobile games and listen to music.  Virtual reality in chemistry education Chemistry lessons in VR is one of the current projects of our company. VR Chemistry Lessons App is a gamified educational program. This app has its own learning plan and a score table with the results of every finished lesson. The interactive virtual environment looks like a classroom with a blackboard, screen for presentations, and the Mendeleev’s  table the student mostly works with. VR Chemistry Lessons App is exclusively designed for Oculus Quest 2. The way VR is changing education Learning school subjects with XR can make students engaged and motivated. When a student is in the virtual or augmented reality, they are capable of learning and understanding school subjects better and faster, thanks to the prevalence of gamified visual content.

Nowadays, a big number of hospitals and rehabilitation centers are already applying virtual reality as the way to provide patients’ recovery. It helps to improve recovery rates, gives patients more motivation, and creates controlled and safe space during the practice. In this blog post, we will tell you more about interesting solutions in virtual reality training, their advantages, and fields where this kind of training is applied. Fields where VR physical recovery is applied Generally, VR technology is created for patients, who are recovering after stroke and serious injuries. The ones who suffer from chronic pains and ones who get through chemotherapy get their own VR treatment too. VR training for stroke survivors are designed to develop self-care habits and improve the control of disease consequences. For patients with chronic pain, VR is a coping mechanism, which helps to distract a person’s attention from the pain and slowly overcome discomfort, using immersion in a virtual adventure. Patients who are on the mend after wounds and injuries have their own VR therapy not only to reduce the pain, but for full or partial resumption of wounded muscle or limb’s capacity. VR training is also applied for cancer patients who get through chemotherapy. Passing games in virtual reality helps to improve memory, common well-being, and distracts from painful discomfort. VR therapy serves as a relieving factor which diverts from chemotherapy side effects such as vertigo, fatigue, vomiting, general weakness, etc. VR industry advantages in patients’ recovery As a supplement to a traditional offline training program, VR therapy has a lot of advantages, including: increasing brain’s work and its cooperation with limbs with the help of special head equipment during the therapy; chronic pain relief — after VR therapy, chronic pain level in patients was proven to decrease by 33%; due to the gaming format and immersion effect of virtual reality, patients become more motivated during the practice; controlled and safe environment of the training; improving patients’ recovery rates, compared to traditional offline therapy — according to the Recovery company statistics, patients improve their motorics during VR exercises by 20% more than during offline therapy. Also, patients with motor impairment recover by 15% faster after VR training; instant and detailed feedback, which is shown up after passing game level in the shape of a tournament table. VR games are a convenient way to monitor a patient’s progress. The results of every game are automatically recorded in the database, which significantly facilitates patient’s health condition tracking. Rehabilitation apps for stroke survivors Many great companies have developed different VR programs specifically for patients who recover from stroke and injuries and work at improving their own bodies’ motorics. MindMotion Go by MindMaze is already used by more than 3000 patients in 90 rehabilitation centers. This program is intuitive, adaptive, and has 17 types of exercises for arms, legs, head and back muscles, etc. Every exercise is made as a 3D arcade, which makes monotonous training more interesting. Also, patients can use MindMotion Go at home. They can make their own exercise program, have unlimited time for training, and periodic video conferences with doctors. Recovery App develops a bunch of physiotherapy and chronic pain relief apps. Specialists have designed a VR therapy for those who suffer from complex regional pain syndrome, chronic and phantom limb pain. These apps are made for restoration of sensitivity, distraction from pain, and breaking the pattern of constant pain and injury fear. Also, the company has announced programs for pain relief and increasing body movement control. RealSystem also offers a gamified VR rehabilitation. For example, in Happy Valley patients help penguins to harvest, go fishing, build houses and do other tasks, as well as make the sun rise in their village. The main target of this program is to restore physical and cognitive habits. Another program, Music in Motion makes patients develop upper body muscles by rhythmical movements, accompanied by music in a candy land, small coast town, and other locations. All RealSystem programs are available as free demos.   Time after time, VR technology proved its efficiency at recovering patients with diseases of the musculoskeletal system. These technologies do not just fasten the recovery, but serve as a good addition to traditional offline exercises. Also, VR technologies enable patients to determine the training schedule and adjust the complexity level of exercises.

We are developing a virtual reality graffiti drawing application for our client. To make the drawing process as realistic and convenient as possible, we have implemented several features, including: The ability to shake the can with realistic sound Visibility of spraying a cloud of paint Dependence of the line thickness on the position of the can Realistic texture filling with paint  

Nowadays, augmented reality has become more than science fiction. AR is vastly used in retail, entertainment, production, healthcare, military training, education, etc. The advantages AR gives to this field explain its growing popularity. The key advantages of them are simplifying the educational process, increasing user involvement, creating customers’ unique experiences, and increasing business efficiency. We would like to tell you about the 5 most interesting technologies, gadgets, and applications, which most clearly represent augmented reality trends in 2022. Virtual Try-On Virtual Try-on technologies bring real fitting rooms into the digital realm. Using the device’s camera, a customer can try the virtual product on. AR technology creates a realistic image of a product on customers’ bodies, which allows them to choose the right clothes without visiting physical shops. Such companies like ASOS and Adidas use AR try-on for a wide range of models in different sizes. 1822 Denim uses YourFit widget by 3DLOOK which significantly simplifies the process of choosing the right size for women. This program scans the customer’s body and then automatically calculates the right size. According to statistics, 90% of the company’s customers felt more confident about personalized recommendations. And 70% of customers went on a purchase after using 3DLOOK technology. Intravenous Assistance AR technologies can also improve healthcare and patients’ treatment. Some augment reality technologies scan a patient’s body parts and reveal an accurate picture of the circulatory system. AR intravenous assistance gadgets and programs are mostly implied during cosmetic procedures, intravenous medication delivery, treatment of varicose and other vein diseases, and so on. AccuVein is a handy gadget with augmented reality technology which helps to find the right vein in a patient’s body. This gadget reduces failed attempts at intravenous medication delivery. According to statistics, from 7% up to 21% of first attempts are failed, even by most experienced doctors. AR Military Training Augmented reality in the military sector is mostly used in different kinds of training. With AR technologies army successfully and safely trains jet pilots, infantry, fighting vehicles, tank crew, etc. One of the most recent technologies — is tactical augmented reality. The Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Centre (CERDEC) recently introduced a heads-up display. TAR uses a helmet-mounted eye display, wirelessly connected to the small computer on a waist. TAR also has integrated mapping, navigation, and 3D models to improve tactical maneuvers and fires. Current AR military technologies are using monochrome images, but CERDEC plans to display fully-colored videos and pictures to improve soldiers’ experience. AR in Education As it was proven multiple times, AR technologies in classes increase a student’s engagement, and interest in a subject and improve content understanding. AR can be used for virtual trips, which help students to learn about foreign cultures during History lessons. Using 3D geometric figures, a student can solve complex geometry tasks. For those who struggle with mathematics and geometry, Photomath is the right choice. After you scan an exercise from a physical worksheet with this mobile VR app, you’ll get the way how to solve a math problem, using interactive 3D graphics. Also, Photomath is suitable for solving problems in geometry, trigonometry, algebra, statistics, etc. This educational AR app has been downloaded from GooglePlay and App Store more than 300 million times. Art & Photography Augmented reality is also used as a new space to create art. AR mobile apps are both a perfect place for artists to make some experimental art and a helpful tool to create real paintings and photos. Like, for example, Sun Surveyor is — a mobile app, made for professional photographers. This app helps artists to find the right location for the photoshoot. It shows an AR picture of the chosen location, with the current location of the sun and the moon in the sky at any particular moment. This app allows calculating the length of shadows and distance between elevations. Sun Surveyor is available at GooglePlay and App Store for $7.99. More than a million users have downloaded this app (with the addition of the Lite version). It’s only a tiny part of the possibilities, which became available with augmented reality. The number of fields where AR is getting applied is growing every year.

While working on a virtual reality application for painting graffiti on walls our team had difficulties with the implementation of smooth painting with spray paint. The drawing process itself is calculated mathematically using linear interpolation. We launch a beam from a can of paint and aim at the texture of the wall on which we will paint, after which we calculate the pixels, and the paint is transferred to the wall. The main difficulty occurred when moving quickly with a can. The paint did not fill all the intermediate points, but only separate ones, as a result, voids appeared in the filling with color. Naturally, at the same time, the drawing process lost its realism and smoothness and became uncomfortable. The reason for this was the use of Unity’s built-in math, which could not cope with a large number of miscalculations. In order to solve this problem, we decided to use third-party libraries: Hybrid renderer — provides systems and components for rendering ECS ​​entities. Hybrid Renderer is not a render pipeline: it is a system that collects the data necessary for rendering ECS ​​entities and sends this data to Unity’s existing rendering architecture. BurstCompiler — it translates from IL/.NET byte code to highly optimized native code using LLVM. It is released as a unity package and integrated into Unity using the Unity Package Manager. Unity C# Job System — lets you write simple and safe multithreaded code that interacts with the Unity Engine for enhanced game performance. In the video below, you can see the difference in performance before and after using third party libraries. After the implementation of the above libraries, the efficiency of the application was improved by 90-100%.

We are working on an interesting NFT project related to 3D avatars, video and sound recording. We decided to briefly tell you about the solutions that we use for work, as well as share information about the inner workings of the project. About the essence of the NFT project The essence of the NFT project is that you buy unique 3D avatars in the application. For them, you can record video with sound using the front camera of your smartphone. The main feature is that the avatar pronounces the recorded sound, repeating the facial expressions and emotions of the speaker. There are currently more than 2000 avatars in the application. The application is currently only available for iPhone. In the future, the purchased NFT avatar can be upgraded in terms of popularity and recognition. After that, it can be monetized: used for advertising, taking part in the shooting of cartoons, animated videos, etc. About the complexities While working on the project, it became necessary to impose various effects on the recorded sound. This can enhance the authenticity of the avatar, make the video more impactful with interesting sound effects, and diversify the experience that users can implement in the application. The main requirement was to use the effects used by professional audio editors. We started looking for a suitable solution, offered various options, some of which did not fit for objective reasons, and the other part was not compatible with the mobile platform. In the end, we settled on one well-known tool that met all our requirements. Tools for working with sound and video Since our project needs to record videos with sound and work with them at the same time, we chose FFMpeg – a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. Before that, we used this library for video processing: trimming, inserting background music. They also knew about the possibilities of working with sound, but did not use all the advanced features. And the possibilities are wide. We can say that this is the most complete library for audio and video processing: compression, timbre, frequency, playback speed, echo. Over 100 different filter combinations. For future clients If you have ideas that you would like to implement, please contact us. We will conduct research, choose the best options and make an effective and simple solution.

May the miracle of Easter bring peace, hope and happiness to all of us. Wishing you a happy Easter full of blessings. P.S. This cute greeting card was handcrafted by our talented Olesia Kornilova.