It takes automakers many years to go from design concept to showroom-ready cars, and by the time designers see their new vehicles in the flesh, it’s often too late to make any major changes. What if there were a way to upend that dynamic, making it possible for designers to see and interact with full-scale digital versions of their works in progress?
That’s essentially the premise behind the new Meta 2 development kit augmented-reality headset. The system, which has finally begun shipping after many months of prototyping, offers a 90-degree field of view in a high-resolution display, and works by plugging into a laptop. That means it’s mobile—technically speaking—as long as you’re willing to move your laptop around where you want to use your headset.
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Meta 2 development kit [Photo: courtesy of Meta]
Aimed for the moment at developers (with the hope that they will quickly create many new AR apps for the platform), the Meta 2 is easy to use and offers compelling 3D holographic imagery that you can manipulate with your hands, walk around with in physical space, and even see inside of. That last feature could definitely come in handy in the case of our aforementioned car designers.
Pre-order pricing of the Meta 2 is $949 until the end of the year, after which it will likely rise above $1,000.
San Mateo, California-based Meta, which has about 130 employees and has raised $75 million in funding, has been showing the Meta 2 off for many months. But the system, which would seem to compete with both Microsoft’s HoloLens and Magic Leap’s as-yet-unseen AR headset, is now a full-blown product that customers are finally getting their hands on.
Is it fully polished? Not at all. In the demo of the shipping version of the headset I saw yesterday, imagery was still somewhat janky—moving around when I didn’t want it to—and not quite as interactive as it should have been.
At the same time, that’s nit-picking, because I was able to move around digital objects, like a cube made of smaller cubes, or a globe, or even a 3D model of a human brain—all with my actual hands and all without the use of physical controllers. Virtual reality systems like the Oculus Rift (with Touch) or the HTC Vive offer wonderful 3D simulations with the ability to move things around with your hands, but those systems require handheld controllers.
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Source: FastCompany