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AR applications already provide concrete added value in construction where you can overlay the digital model with the site for inspections and such.

I would see Magic Leap falls to same category as hololens - which is used for real work in the construction industry - but only on a more affordable price point.

The key question is how easy it is to develop applications for it. Hololens basically consumes unity apps which makes it a pretty easy for development and deployment.

AR applications already provide concrete added value in construction where you can overlay the digital model with the site for inspections and such

You say that, but we built the leading product for this in 2014 (Visidraft) and AEC still isn't ready in 2018 for this for a host of reasons.

Forgetting for a moment that 99% of these applications are on tablets and phones - which is still too difficult to manage for most AEC firms - the problems inherent in the lack of infrastructure to solve the 3D content management, object localization, user collaboration and markup management are still unsolved. Not technically mind you, but in business processes and workflow.

Add HMD to that and you cut the market deployment by 1/1000th. So a demo here or there from DAQRI or Hololens does not prove the value of it being a serious and concrete product.

Beyond that though, the biggest problem was that it ends up providing the most value as a sales/collab tool between clients and developers, and we constantly heard that architects didn't want to use it because it put too much power into the client's hand. Imagine that.

So I'm not sure where you're getting the "provide concrete added value." Show me the successful product - not a demo, or a pilot product, but one that is generating profit at scale and is integrated into an entire business process at a firm like Gensler (one of our clients previously).

It's a theoretically great use case, but in practice, it requires too much from the user to make it work as a stable product.

[1] https://www.architectmagazine.com/videos/visidraft-augmented...

Salespeople will (often) say anything that - with some explanation and wordsmithing - is a true (albeit typically unverifiable) statement.

I feel like this is the start of explaining the why: "...architects didn't want to use it because it put too much power into the client's hand."

That's likely true for many more traditional Architectural professionals considering early AEC success case studies with AR/VR. I have to imagine the average Architect in a leadership role is battle-hardened by the changes that have displaced much of their fee, influence and involvement in the existing building construction framework. Giving up more of any of those likely feels like a loss for those individuals. Just as early IT professionals felt the loss of their wizard powers as computers and mobile became consumerized, Architects are feeling the loss of their wizard powers as clients become more informed and engaged.

AR remains from what I can see, the fodder of AE start-ups and larger firms placing their bets on the technology to address project design and coordination challenges. VR has already inundated every firm I work with - big and small - on most projects they undertake.

Trimble has a bunch of mixed reality solutions in the market and more are in the pipeline:

http://mixedreality.trimble.com

You are quite right of the challenges but the technical competence of the largest engineering companies is quite sufficient to implement new solutions if they actually provide value and fit into their pipeline (err... that means most of the time that they can display dwg and revit models).

We have Trimble equipment in our demo center, very cool AND industry provided design and use case input so they've got baked in customers.

Hololens 2 and Trimble (and Andromeda) ... If they get it right ...

"the biggest problem was that it ends up providing the most value as a sales/collab tool between clients and developers"

That's not really a problem, rather it proves there is a valuable use case for it.

Depending on the process architects have varying power over the overall project process. This can vary a lot between regions, companies and domains (i.e residential, offshore, bridges, etc etc)

That's an interesting POV and I do actually see business popping up whose core competency is managing 3d models. Particularly for retail products like furniture. No one has a really smooth process and costs are high, but there is definitely activity going on and progress is being made.

I can name probably a dozen companies trying to win the 3D object CRM game, but nobody is in the lead currently. It's still too early for standards to emerge and most content creators are duplicating effort across product lines eg. Target, Houzz, Wayfair are all modeling the same object in different ways (photogrammetry, hand modeling etc...).

3D content creation is one of, if not the biggest bottleneck for AR.

This is an area where Amazon/AWS/Sumerian are going to shine.

I can see a world where retailers on Amazon.com are incentivized or forced to submit 3D models of their products along when creating a for sale posting.

Consumers will put on their AR glasses, or use WebVR to to visualize the item before they purchase.

Amazon will have the gatekeeping power to force vendors to use a certain standard 3D modeling process, or have an in-house team receive the products and use photogrammetry/CAD modeling.

How much value/productivity will this generate - separate question but one worth asking.

Maybe.

However Amazon (et al) have trouble just getting good 2D images from Vendors and is not making much of a push at all to get vendors to build 3D content.

This is a long standing problem: Should retailers do the modeling or vendors? It's expensive and hard on infrastructure to do it, and CAD standards aren't consistent enough to use that avenue. Vendors aren't tech savvy and have questionable practices for investing in marketing/sales materials, including photography because it doesn't scale.

I could go all day on this, but I won't. Bottom line is, none of the major platforms are stepping up and being leaders in AR on the content side. It's pretty marginal efforts so the results are marginal. I think everyone is waiting around for the Apple glasses now.

Photogrammery software has become pretty remarkable. A single camera and a turntable will turn out fairly good 3d models/meshes as long as there aren't a lot of reflective surfaces.

Or this kind of nonsense happens:

https://www.recode.net/2017/11/16/16666662/williams-sonoma-o...

That's a sweet 100M for off-the-shelf components. Oh boy.

Does Amazon have a history of forcing digital content to be input for certain items?

I've been really annoyed that all food sellers aren't required to provide a list of ingredients and nutritional info to Amazon when selling on the platform (the US government also doesn't make them available via the FDA). That data would let Amazon build a food graph so people could really search for products that fit them.

For example: I want a cookie that is like an Oreo, but has less sugar.

Today, they just can't answer these questions without making some big assumptions, and can't expose the ingredients via an API so we can build cool products with the data.

That's actually a really interesting idea. Big food co's would fight it like hell, and I don't think a large volume of food moves through Amazon.com at the moment, but the API possibilities here would be very fun to play around with.

Whilst the Hololens is currently more expensive than this version of MagicLeap, I'll be interested to see what MS produce next year when the next version is scheduled to come out.

One thing that I think MagicLeap have got wrong for a business market is not working over glasses (it seems like you need to fit prescription lenses to the device)

That means you can't easily share the device with others, which I would think would be a common use case in business (i.e. most places won't buy one device per user, but a number of devices for a department)

> Whilst the Hololens is currently more expensive than this version of MagicLeap, I'll be interested to see what MS produce next year when the next version is scheduled to come out.

Microsoft can also sell the Hololens at cost to get people building on their cloud platform for that sweet, sweet, reoccurring revenue.

In comparison, MagicLeap has a lot of investors they need to make happy.

That's my thinking as well. There are probably a ton of industry applications in design, engineering and architecture. Folks who are used to wearing goggles and hardhats aren't worried about looking funny. And if you can prove real ROI for businesses, you can charge $5-10K for a sturdy headset and businesses will pay it. Trying to go mass market out of the gate seems like overreach.

Already existed for years at Daqri with pretty robust support, implementation capabilities and proof points in industry. Uptake is lackluster and sales cycles are long.

https://daqri.com/

https://shop.daqri.com/

I'd be really curious to hear if you have more insights on why uptake is lackluster? Do you suspect AR glasses just aren't actually that useful for most industries? Or is it more that current technologies have specific limitations that prevent these kinds of products from living up to their potential?

It's all of the above really.

More Simply: It's not solving user problems better/faster/cheaper than current solutions.

It's an order of magnitude harder to create 3D content than it is 2D content. Tying 3D content to the real world in a way that is useful and persistent is incredibly difficult. The AR form factor (phone or HMD) is still wonky and nonstandard. Too many other factors to consider still.

Isn't construction/architecture nowadays moving more and more to BMI software?

I'd assume that with a BMI model and AR capabilities (even from a phone) where you set a square (or some other shape) with known dimensions on the ground to calibrate and use GPS (or other positioning systems) for determining position/heading, doesn't seem like software for visualisation of models in-site should be that hard. Even on a current phone it should be doable.

What am I missing? Because it feels like there is some complexity I'm not considering.

It would be too much to really go into, but what I will say is that almost all of your assumptions are misguided.

I don't mean that in a mean way, but for example using GPS for AR anchoring is not viable and will never be. So we have to build computer vision systems for localizing content, and those are complex and expensive and have hardware, bandwidth and other constraints.

BIM is ubiquitous, but not easily integrated with other hardware, and the hardware best suited for it (HMD) are expensive and not yet everywhere - or even widely adopted.

"GPS for AR anchoring is not viable and will never be"

You can get centimeter level accuracy from GNSS with off the shelf custom antennae and software, see e.g. Trimble Catalyst https://catalyst.trimble.com

You can combine that with AR devices to get good enough positioning onsite for review purposes.

It's not precise enough for attaching nails and such, for which there are other location based solutions.

We actually have most of the pieces for a 'smart construction site' in existence as off the shelf components. But the construction industry is such that startups are not very well positioned to lead the change - hence I understand you disenchanted tone.

Well GNSS =/= GPS, so my point stands, but...

No, GNSS is not ready to go. Look at the submeter coverage area for GNSS, it's TINY. Go look at work that Todd Humphreys has been doing at UAustin for over a decade trying to do cm specific GNSS localiztion with wider area deployments. It's just not tractable, scalable or anything near ready for a mass market. Like there is no reason for GNSS to grow at all when we're now building cloud vision based localization systems.

You keep referencing Trimble, I get it, they are doing good work in a handful of these areas. But the reality is that the uptake of hardware by firms to support AR at a scale that would support a company, is nowhere close to ready.

I'm telling you, I've skinned this cat from every conceivable angle.

"But the reality is that the uptake of hardware by firms to support AR at a scale that would support a company, is nowhere close to ready.

I'm telling you, I've skinned this cat from every conceivable angle."

Ok, that angle I can agree on. I don't think there is any way a small company can provide an AR component and hit it big.

However, if an AR solution is bundled next to other computing infrastucture, with the import of files etc. handled, I've not seen anyone dismissing this concept.

The problem is that you need the entire infrastucture for project management and engineering to be digitized, and then you can add up the AR component to that.

Then AR is just one more "check box" in the feature lists of application suites offered by the incumbents. I think it will become an important checkbox, but like you said, there won't be an "Uber of AR" like there is no "Uber of DWG import".

At a glance it really looks like magicleap straight-up lifted this device.

How so? The ML doesn't look anything like it to me.

Proving ROI is however a real problem. First you need software for your specific need and that itself can easily consume half a million dollar budget even for small team. Then you need to distribute these expensive devices. And then everything needs to actually work and improve the bottom line. Someone in company needs to approve those massive POs. May be there are few cases where these pays off overwhelmingly over traditional methods.

Absolutely. Similarly AR overlays of services under roads, in buildings and big refinaries and such. I think architects and engineers are an excellent target audience. As with Google Glass, ARs use case is going to be niche professions before consumer.

Oh.. I must have missed your rage comments against hololens that had a comparable influx of money, only internal in MS, for a much worse product. Hololens is asking 3000$ for their product. With a single focal plane instead of a double one like magic leap. The vergence accommodation in magic leap apparently is so well done that even the most negative article against it, from the verge, couldn’t see any difference. Honestly I would ask the “journalist” that wrote such a bad review if maybe was really that the objective???

For me if I can choose between looking at AR for less than one hour with a big headache because my eyes are playing pinball with my mind and looking for more than one hour to AR or mixed reality and “not notice anything because the resolution is too low” I would obviously choose the second option. Not noticing anything means that magic leap reached their objective. Your experience is seamless, you won’t even notice the different focal planes.

Your points are valid, but you should know that they have a few partnerships (that we already know about...) to produce AAA quality launch apps. So their investment in content might be bigger than you think.

One major application that we know about is in the comic book space. That's not a huge market, but there are definitely some hardcore fans that would be willing to pay the premium in order to wallpaper their homes in their favorite giant sized comic books.

For me, if the quality is high enough that I can read comics without serious eye strain, than I will be buying it.

My first thought was tabletop gaming: imagine real-time visuals for a D&D session à la the chessboard on the Millenium Falcon. Price point is too high for that at present though.

There are some projects that do this with 3d TVs already... as an example on just 2d TVs, see https://www.patreon.com/dynamicdungeons

My reaction to most d&d players I know, is "cool, but no thanks". We are developers and play d&d to get AWAY from technology. We use it where it makes sense (I use a digital 2d map).. but the fun of d&d is in the mind, and having 3d monsters isn't helping the core game.

Honest question, do you play boardgames? I play tons of boardgames, and to me it always seems like the developers who rage on about “using apps to digitize boardgames” completely miss everything that I and my friends love about the games. I want to throw the dice myself, not press a button on my phone. When I play tricky economy games the fact that I need to do the math myself is a feature of the game not a bug. And when I play dungeons and dragons I want it to be all imagination. If I wanted to fight 3D fire breathing dragons in an immersive visual experiance I would be playing Skyrim not D&D.

Magic Leaps AR is like amazon was ten years ago. Its hemorrhaging money left, right and center, and it offers something no other is offering right now.

The chance, to be there, have a foot in the door, when this thing explodes and wraps the whole world in a new layer of devices.

And these devices have the chance to replace everything- you can see and must not touch to function. Want a comprehensive list - look around you.

PC-Screens, TV-Screens, Room-Decorations, Pets, Inflated-Ego-Expression - and all of this, in just one room. This can reform public spaces, city's will have themes on a daily basis- yesterday was Venetian carnival, today its inception town.

And the best of it all- none of these goods will require a environmental footprint to manufacture- trade will have a huge chunk taken out- and moved into a steam-like ecosystem. Who's entrance fee- will look like peanuts to the revenue gained.

> it offers something no other is offering right now.

What about HoloLens, maybe Google Glass 2, and a few other less well funded competitors like Meta 2?

Ten years ago Amazon seems to have had profits of $650 million on sales of $19bn. I think Magic Leap still has some catching up to do.

Something tells me this comment will not age well.

The technology isn't there yet, of course, but the ultimate use case is replacing every computing/entertainment device you currently own that has a screen (plus all the other hypothetical use cases of AR)

Whether they can find compelling enough use cases to sustain them in the meantime is the real question (and I suppose that's what you're asking)

Totally disagree. AR will be the future of modern businesses in 10 years. Every employee will be equipped with this technology having a virtual keyboard, email inbox, avatar chat... all within one device.

> AR will be the future of modern businesses in 10 years

Agreed. 10 years from now, AR will still be the future of modern business.

You may be surprised to learn that the vast majority of white collar employees are already equipped with one device that has a keyboard, email inbox, and chat.

And AR creatures for that matter if you download the Pokemon app.

>>having a virtual keyboard

I'd be cautious about that.

I got to try a laser keyboard[1] and it hurts to use it pretty quickly and isn't that accurate. I suppose we could just have a double-wide version of a wrist-wrest for the haptic feedback, but that doesn't necessarily help the accuracy issues.

1 - https://www.amazon.com/Brookstone-FBA_mp-796246-Projection-V...

Why? What does a virtual keyboard give you that a real one doesn't? What does avatar chat give you that a Slack channel doesn't? I don't see any reason why these are compelling enough to change how you currently do work.

I cannot disagree more. This will be relegated to certain segments of business, but no more than that.

What would be the value add here for a company over their existing infrastructure?

>virtual keyboard

The most awful thing ever.

You can pry my keyboard from my cold dead hands. No way I'd want to use a virtual keyboard with no tactile feedback. I try to avoid typing my phone whenever possible as it is already.