WorldViz creates ‘warehouse-scale’ motion-tracking for VR headsets

The HTC Vive virtual reality headset boasts the ability to create “room-scale” VR experiences for consumers in their living rooms. But enterprise VR company WorldViz is going a step further, allowing users to walk around in a space the size of a warehouse and still be tracked by a motion-sensing system for VR.

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based WorldViz has to do something like this as it makes the company relevant to enterprise customers in an age when relatively inexpensive PC-based VR headsets are hitting the market. WorldViz says it can put people into a large space and let them wander around in a very lifelike experience.

VR content developers using the Unity game engine and Unreal Engine can now bring high-precision, wide-area tracking to businesses using Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Daydream VR, and other head-mounted displays. This June, WorldViz will release an integration into Unity 5 and Unreal Engine 4 that brings warehouse-scale wide-area tracking capability to any VR headset supported by those engines: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, and now Google’s Daydream VR. WorldViz’s tech is used across 1,500 corporations and other institutions already.

While the Vive can operate in a space the size of a living room, the WorldViz PPT system ups the ante, tracking up to 10 people or objects simultaneously across spaces measuring more than 50 meters by 50 meters with real-time, sub-millimeter accuracy.

The hybrid optical-inertial system includes high-precision cameras that capture position data at 240Hz; lightweight sensors that can be affixed to the aforementioned headsets or objects such as robots; a sensor “wand” for tracking hands; and a standalone software package known as PPT Studio.

The PPT system is targeted at applications that require high degrees of precision and accuracy, movement, collaboration, and co-presence — such as research, architectural, and real-estate walk-throughs, large-scale product and construction design reviews (e.g. planes, cars, interior building spaces, and so on), and training applications.

The PPT system is available today starting at $15,000 depending on the number of cameras, sensors, and installation support needed.