At Laval Virtual, Immersion will be presenting its new “Shariiing Workroom” solution.
Crédits photos : Immersion
As an architect of immersive and collaborative spaces, Immersion is committed to improving the way people work, thanks to XR technologies. A pioneer of VR/AR in France since its creation in 1994, the Bordeaux-based company is also one of the few loyal exhibitors at Laval Virtual since the first edition in 1999. Immersion returns to the exhibition floor once again this year to present a new offering: Shariiing Workroom. Interview with Mathieu Lépine, Brand Ambassador.
Can you tell us more about your company?
Immersion creates immersive, collaborative workspaces. Immersion rethinks tomorrow’s workplace. Beyond the performance, time-saving and efficiency of its solutions, its ambition is to instill pride in its customers’ employees and the desire to collaborate.
Innovation catalyst, virtual and augmented reality expert, space and interface designer, above all, Immersion is an architect of solutions to orchestrate and reenchant the work experience. What do its solutions have in common? Putting people back at the heart of technological innovation by focusing on the user experience.
A pioneer in virtual reality since 1994, Immersion now boasts a wide range of expertise thanks to its multidisciplinary team. Immersion selects, invents, patents and distributes innovative technological products. Immersion integrates immersive and interactive systems combining headsets, large image walls and collaborative tables. Immersion develops Shariiing, its software solution for presentation and collaboration. Finally, Immersion produces mixed reality applications, participates in national and European research projects, and conducts technical and usage studies.
Whatever their size or sector of activity, private or public-sector players are using their re-enchanted immersive and collaborative workspaces to make their staff proud, generate ideas, save time, make people dream…. They are exploring uses in innovation, production, marketing, training and maintenance. These immersive, collaborative workspaces include virtual reality rooms, creativity rooms, hybrid training rooms, innovative showrooms, innovation laboratories, factories of the future, and more.
What will you exhibit at Laval Virtual?
Immersion has been a historic exhibitor at Laval Virtual since its first edition in 1999. Each year, we present new demonstrations, either thematic or technological, but in all cases, we give pride of place to uses rather than to technologies as such.
Are you planning any activities or demos at your booth?
At this year’s Laval Virtual, we’ll be launching a new “Shariiing Workroom” offering in collaboration with HTC Vive. A turnkey immersive room to take collaboration to the next level. Prepare, share, communicate. Powerful solutions to secure decisions based on 3D and CAD data. But that’s all for now!
An experience of immersive design review will be shared on a very large touch screen equipped with Shariiing and Shariiing XR. With Shariiing, we’re offering users the chance to evolve on a veritable digital playground. Share your insights and doubts. With this software from our Research & Development department, collaboration takes on a whole new meaning. With Shariiing, we create immersive collaboration spaces.
Shariiing XR is the solution we launched at Laval Virtual last year. It represents a major advance in collaborative immersive interaction. Shariiing XR enables the integration of virtual and augmented reality headsets into the Shariiing collaborative environment. The aim is to offer an intuitive interface to link two universes – immersive environments, via XR headsets in particular, and the real world – in order to secure decision-making or promote better learning. In this way, users can interact both locally and remotely: they can “point”, place a marker, guide the user’s gaze, or add a note, in the 3D scene.
Our partners on our booth will also be presenting dedicated experiences. First of all, Barco and its innovative, high-end display technologies, particularly in the field of LEDs for 3D displays. This LED Powerwall will be an integral part of the Shariiing demonstration. Next, ESI Group – Part of Keysight will present its IC.IDO engineering software, enabling immersive analysis and validation of products or assembly processes directly using 3D CAD data. They will also unveil the latest evolution of IC.IDO concerning its simulation capabilities for wire and surface flexible elements.
Finally, we’ll still have our traditional “corner shop” area. Corner Shop being the name of our e-commerce site to meet all XR needs. Our team of specialists will be on hand to help visitors make the right choice. They’ll be able to test the latest innovations (Apple Vision Pro), and share their uses and questions. Partners will also be giving demonstrations in the corner shop area: Lenovo, OptiTrack and Manus.
What is your company’s core innovation?
The heart of our strategy is Shariiing. Shariiing is our collaboration and presentation solution, born of a European research project on crisis management. Today, it’s a product. Shariiing’s ambition is to share any information with anyone, anywhere. For what purpose? To understand each other better, collaborate better, teach better, innovate better and decide better.
To date, Shariiing has materialized in several solutions, including Shariiing Advanced for touch screens, Meetiiim collaborative tables and Studiiio hydrid videoconferencing solutions, as well as Shariiing XR for connecting XR headsets and immersive systems.
We’re also very much in demand and involved in the digital twin, whether in industrial or urban contexts, with the theme of the Smart City of the future. More generally, our target markets are education and training, manufacturing, the city of the future and security/defense.
Finally, we believe in a technology that empowers humanity, by placing people at the heart of the decision-making process. A future where talent is not just recognized, but valued.
How is your solution transforming your business field?
We’ve been working for many years to improve the user experience. This involves a great deal of design work, which permeates all our developments. Immersive solutions are often highly technological, and our job is to make them accessible, functional and intuitive. Our aim is to increase the use of these technologies, which can deliver real productivity gains, particularly for our industrial customers, as well as greater learner involvement in training and education.
Sustainability and the environment are key topics of this century. How do you cope with these concerns in your XR technologies?
We are taking action and are engaged in a major process of reflection to respond to climate change and its consequences for the environment and our ecosystem.
For more than 10 years, we have been integrating human factors into our design to best meet our customers’ needs. This approach guides us towards the implementation of eco-design practices for our hardware and software solutions. More generally, we have been committed to a CSR approach within Immersion for many months, to reduce our environmental impact across the entire value chain.
Our solutions also address issues related to these concerns. Thanks to the digital twin, we help local authorities to make better decisions in their urban planning strategies, to minimize the impact of their projects, or in climate risk management. Immersive collaboration also enables our industrial customers to continue working remotely on their projects without necessarily needing to meet in the same place, thus reducing the need to travel.
