10/10/2008

Inexpensive Virtual Reality for the Selling Floor

The CATER Project, a European initiative aiming at networked business and mass customization in the automotive industry, is pleased to announce that the project was exhibiting during the 5th INTUITION International Conference of October 6-8, 2008, in Turin, Italy. At this occasion, CATER's virtual reality solution has been demonstrated.

Virtual Reality (VR) is perfectly suited for communication: presenting, convincing, and selling by means of a kind of computer game, which becomes an experience by providing stereo vision and spatial interaction. Up until now, hardware costs have been a barrier for many VR applications. The researchers and engineers of Fraunhofer IAO presented during the annual conference of the European Network of Excellence on VR, INTUITION, in Turin an inexpensive system, which reduces drastically the price for implementing high-quality Virtual Reality. It is in particular suited for the application in marketing and sales.

The system is based on a stereoscopic TV set, which is now commercially available. It allows for stereo vision using so-called shutter glasses. There have not been any applications, which could make use of this hardware. Fraunhofer IAO supplemented its well-known software platform “Lightning” accordingly and equipped the TV set with a high performance tracking system for sensing head movements, which resulted in a fully equipped VR system.

The demonstration in Turin showed a new version of the VR car configurator of the European project CATER. Such configurators could be installed at car dealers’ showrooms, in order to allow the customers to experience the selected options in a realistic way within virtual reality, before making decision what to order. On the one hand this adds to the internet configurators used today showing typically only small images of the chosen configuration and are not able to give a real spatial impression. On the other hand they add to a test drive in a real car, which normally does not meet the preferences of the customer in all aspects. Thus the VR configurator turns out to be a perfect link in the “virtual” sales process.

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