The Princeton office of Trimble MAPS had the absolute pleasure of hosting Aviad Almagor, Director of Trimble’s Mixed Reality Program, to present the fascinating work that Trimble is doing to connect the physical world to the digital world. Trimble’s suite of mixed-reality software provides enterprise customers in architecture, engineering, construction, mining and utilities the ability to transform their work with spatial computing technologies.
What is Mixed Reality?
Mixed Reality technology blends real-world objects with digital content, interactively, and in real-time. Together with holographic technology, it brings the models out of the screen and helps people efficiently interpret physical and digital information. Think of it as a blend of virtual and augmented reality - mixed reality recognizes the physical environment and allows the digital content to interact in three dimensions.
Believe it or not, Trimble has been deploying mixed reality in our products since 1997! Since then, Trimble has teamed up with over a dozen hardware and software providers to be among the first to bring relevant mixed reality products to the enterprise market.
How is Mixed Reality being used today?
Our customers in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction are using apps like SketchUp Viewer and Trimble Connect to visualize 3D design earlier and more effectively than ever before. This allows them to rapidly iterate on design ideas and collaborate with others while immersed in the design. This is significantly improving data communication and interpretation to reduce rework, increase productivity, and improve overall job quality.
In the Civil and Utilities spaces, customers can use a tool like SiteVision to locate buried utilities or visualize their design before undertaking their daily work. If they get stuck, they can use Trimble PULSE to call in an expert to remotely guide their work.
In the mining industry, our customers are using Visual Intelligence to interact with digital replicas of their open pit mines on a tabletop while sitting at their desks thousands of miles away. They can overlay important information such as stockpiles volumes, ore movements and grade, and they can even see real-time locations of machinery and trucks.
Interested to see what Mixed Reality can do for you?
The Trimble Mixed Reality professional services team provides training, workflow guidance and implementation support on the full suite of Trimble’s mixed-reality solutions. How will you use mixed reality?
The Road Ahead with Mixed Reality
Here at Trimble MAPS we work with a number of other Trimble divisions and sectors. Aviad and his team have inspired us to think about how the benefits of mixed reality can translate beyond the field and onto the road - improving the experience for commercial vehicles, drivers, and fleets. The opportunities for work productivity are endless.