AR/VR for conferencing and remote assistance

AR and VR headsets can be used for communication purposes. People can be brought together in a virtual environment, either as avatars in a more game-like environment, or photo-realistic using cameras and video streams. The immersion of a shared environment brings people closer together, and life-like and life-size user representations allow for ‘normal’ group interaction, which resembles more to a face-to-face meeting compared to desktop-based video conferencing due to gaze awareness and full body language. Furthermore, such a system is quite flexible in use. It requires either a PC with VR-HMD (head mounted display) and camera, or soon a standalone VR- HMD and optionally a smartphone as capture device. Compared to highend video conferencing systems, it does not need a fixed space and can be used anywhere. Given the immersion and naturalness of the communication, AR and VR offer a new opportunity for remote communication.