Varjo unveils new ‘Teleport’ service for 3D reality capture

In General XR News

June 19, 2024 – Varjo, a provider of industrial-grade extended reality (XR) solutions, has this week unveiled Teleport, a new service designed to quickly generate photorealistic 3D capture scans of real-world environments directly from an iPhone and allow users to view these scenes from a variety of devices, including PCs, virtual reality (VR) headsets, and more. 

Varjo stated that until now, XR experiences have been limited by the amount of 3D content that could be generated. The process required advanced skills in real-time 3D graphics or photogrammetry, as well as a significant investment in time to create assets and build a scene. 

Using Teleport by Varjo, anybody can create a high-resolution 3D model of their environment without any previous expertise, according to the company, which added that turning a room or an outdoor place into a virtual experience is now as easy as scanning it with a smartphone. 

Teleport reconstructs the real-world scene with accurate lighting, shading, textures and reflections using advancements in 3D gaussian splatting and machine learning technologies. The resulting 3D reality capture can be viewed and experienced with a range of devices, starting with Varjo headsets, other PC-connected OpenXR headsets, or Windows desktops. 

“Varjo is further bridging the gap between real worlds and virtual worlds by introducing the world’s first high-resolution end-to-end scan-to-VR solution,” said Patrick Wyatt, Chief Product Officer at Varjo. “Teleport by Varjo can radically reduce the time and cost associated with digitizing real-world places, making immersive experiences rooted in reality more accessible and effective.” 

Varjo stated that it expects this reality reconstruction technology to enhance a variety of immersive applications across fields such as training, mission planning, and remote assistance. By providing an accurate digital twin of real-world environments, it aids in creating more effective training scenarios and planning tools, since it enables users to virtually visit and interact with remote locations in great detail.

Commenting on the technology, Hannu Järvensivu, XR Stage Project Manager at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, saif: “The Finnish National Opera and Ballet is looking forward to utilizing Teleport in our operations. Together with our XR Stage modeling tool, we expect it can improve the evaluation of new incoming rental productions significantly, as the digital twins of real-world sets can be investigated on the virtual stage in their authentic size and form, instead of trying to figure out their visual appearance and fit on stage only based on photos and CAD images,” 

Varjo’s virtual and mixed reality hardware and software are currently used by over a quarter of Fortune 100 companies to enhance astronaut and pilot training programs, expedite automotive production, and advance medical research. With its new Teleport technology, Varjo is expanding its service offering to provide its tools for moving workflows from the physical world to virtual environments.

Users interested in trying out the technology can join the waitlist. The company stated that it expects the service to become generally available later in 2024. Varjo will be demonstrating Teleport for the first time at Augmented World Expo (AWE) USA 2024 in Long Beach, California, from June 18-20. 

For more information on Varjo and its XR solutions, please visit the company’s website.

Image / video credit: Varjo / YouTube