The opportunities arising as a result of augmented and virtual reality are as diverse as their user industries: whether it’s looking at a car without visiting a dealer, the virtual planning of Industry 4.0 assembly halls, reactivating stroke patients or tailor-made interior design using a mobile phone – many scenarios are conceivable in both the B2C and B2B sector.
Augmented and virtual reality (AR & VR) are a prime example of cross-industry innovation: AR and VR innovations can be found in industrial applications as well as in the health, sport or education sector and last but not least in marketing and the entertainment industry of course. There are no limits to the imagination. And the Bavarian creative industry provides the ideal conditions for this: for example, with more than 50,000 companies, 180,000 employees and a turnover of EUR 22.9 billion Munich is the largest creative hub in Germany and the third largest in Europe. Support in implementing innovative concepts is provided, for example, by the Bavarian Film Center with formats like the i4C events or the VR Creators’ Lab.
Innovative concepts need innovative minds
Several Bavarian universities are researching how exactly the promising technologies can be applied in different industries: including the Chair for Computer Aided Medical Procedures & Augmented Reality at TUM, the Play2Change project at Regensburg university, the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt and the Chair for Human-Computer Interaction at Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg. And digital talent is not just being educated here but at other high education institutions in Bavaria, for example Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, University of Bayreuth, Macromedia University of Applied Sciences, Fresenius University of Applied Sciences and the University of Television and Film Munich. Non-university research is also concentrating on topics to do with augmented and virtual reality, for example the Fraunhofer IIS, which has a more than extensive VR environment with its Holodeck, or the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, which houses state of the art technologies, such as a 5-sided projection installation and large-scale, high-resolution Powerwall at its centre for virtual reality and visualisation (V2C).
Bavaria supports AR/VR research and companies
The Council of Ministers recently passed the “Virtual Reality Bavaria” package of measures in its cabinet resolution so that AR and VR concepts can continue to grow in Bavaria in future. Project funding and new innovation centres in Munich (focus: networks/applied projects) and Erlangen (focus: research/technology development) are going to pool and network activities by media and industrial companies, increase visibility, initiate new developments and strengthen Bavaria on the whole. The Bavarian government is also investing in Bavaria’s digital future with the Bayern Digital I and Bayern Digital II master plans. Funds of EUR 5.5 billion in total are being budgeted for the period from 2015 to 2022 to make Bavaria a leading region in the digital revolution. This naturally also provides promising potential for developing and implementing AR and VR solutions. The FFF Bayern funding partner for the film and games industry has now also created a separate funding program for virtual reality to be able to support innovative ideas for virtual reality formats. Start-ups can find funding opportunities at several technology and start-up centres in Bavaria. Who knows, perhaps the next cross-industry innovation is already in its infancy?
Bavaria benefits from AR and VR innovations in particular with its high density of technology and industrial companies and no longer just in theory: For example, Audi has already launched the first fully functional virtual reality application for customer consultation at dealerships with the “Audi VR experience”. Researchers at Siemens are working on a digital twin for gas turbines that enables engineers to monitor them from a distance and solve maintenance problems early. And Schaeffler is testing the impact virtual and augmented reality has on industrial concepts in virtual training rooms, among other things. The AR & VR ecosystem in Bavaria is building a community of considerable technological creativity and diversity. The success of Bavarian research institutes, the companies based here and of course the start-ups too can be seen, among other things, by the fact that the Augmented World Expo Europe (AWE Europe) came to Munich in 2017 and have opted for the location again in 2018 too.
