The What: Industrial-grade VR/XR developer Varjo has introduced real-time chroma keying and marker tracking as early access features for its XR-1 Developer Edition headset. An industry-standard technique known as “green-screening” used in broadcasting and film, Varjo is the first company to deliver chroma keying in real-time for mixed reality devices. With marker tracking, professional users can instantly anchor any virtual objects to the real world using printable visual markers.
[Varjo and Lenovo Partner on Advanced XR Computing for Enterprises]
The What Else: Chroma keying is particularly beneficial for professional workflows where aligning virtual content accurately with the physical world is crucial. Users can now easily define parts of reality, identify them with color, and replace them with virtual models or scenery without heavy development costs. With chroma key, virtual content also occludes with real-world objects or hands, allowing intuitive interactions. Using Varjo’s object tracking with visual markers, professionals can make virtual objects appear exactly where they want them in their surroundings. Example use cases include:
- Conduct training and simulation: A pilot can sit in a replica of a plane or helicopter cockpit and be able to look outside and see oneself flying in an ultra-immersive visual scenery, while operating physical cockpit controllers for realistic training. Chroma keying also enables multi-user training scenarios.
- Design the products of tomorrow: An automotive designer can sit in a car and replace parts of the interior with designs that are not yet built in reality with the click of a button. Designers can also collaborate in an immersive mixed reality space, interacting with virtual models and making changes to them in real-time, or virtually “dress” 3D prints to look like material-finished products.
- Run academic, clinical, and commercial research: Researchers can conduct studies inside life-like mixed reality, simultaneously combining virtual and real world elements into the research environment. The subjects can hold virtual products or instruments in their hands and interact with them.
“Since its commercial launch in December 2019, Varjo’s XR-1 Developer Edition has quickly become the most demanded mixed reality product for professional users, transforming the way companies train, design, and conduct research in immersive environments,” said Urho Konttori, chief product officer and co-founder of Varjo. “When our customers asked us to create a seamless solution for blending the real and virtual worlds, we immediately jumped to the challenge. We’re excited to introduce real-time chroma keying and object tracking to our customers just three months after the first deliveries of the XR-1, enabling absolute immersion inside mixed reality.”
The Bottom Line: Together, chroma keying and marker tracking allow enterprise customers to seamlessly integrate virtual and real worlds, interact with photorealistic virtual content as they would in real life, and achieve pixel-perfect accuracy and occlusion inside mixed reality. Demo videos showcasing the power of chroma keying and marker tracking are available here.
Both chroma keying and marker tracking are available in early access to all users of the XR-1 Developer Edition headset.
