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As enterprises across industries adopt hybrid work environments, many companies are integrating augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) into their workflows to drive design review, training, virtual production, location-based entertainment, and more.
The promise of AR, VR, and MR—also collectively known as extended reality (XR)—is nothing short of revolutionary. But there are some common challenges with XR:
- Mobile VR and AR devices offer fantastic convenience and mobility, but they lack the memory and computational power to drive the high-fidelity and photorealism expected in enterprise experiences.
- Powerful VR workstations with NVIDIA RTX GPUs drive beautiful, high-fidelity immersive experiences — but these workstations typically require dedicated space and equipment, as well as awkward physical tethers to attach the VR headsets to the workstation.
This is where advanced XR streaming solutions come in. NVIDIA CloudXR, a groundbreaking innovation built on NVIDIA RTX technology, delivers VR and AR across 5G and Wi-Fi networks. With NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation software, CloudXR is fully scalable for data center and edge networks.
With a solution like CloudXR, any XR endpoint device — including VR All-in-One (AIO) head-mounted displays (HMDs) and AR tablets/phones — can become a high-fidelity XR display capable of showcasing professional-quality graphics. This means globally distributed teams can stream and share high-quality immersive experience with colleagues, clients and stakeholders in any location.
XR is Trailblazing the Path for Hybrid Work
CloudXR is leading the way for enhanced collaboration, streamlined workflows and photorealistic virtual environments. Using the CloudXR platform, enterprises across industries like manufacturing, architecture, and media and entertainment are taking immersive experiences to the next level by combining high-quality graphics with the mobility of wireless XR devices.
And with graphics powered by RTX technology, that means teams can build the most photorealistic virtual environments — and stream those environments to users around the world. With a good internet connection, there’s no longer a need for users to be physically tethered to an expensive workstation to have a seamless experience inside an immersive environment.
With XR streaming, design reviews can be significantly improved. Architects using CloudXR and untethered VR headsets can freely move around digital building models without being constrained by cables. Teams can even send an inexpensive lightweight VR headset to customers and colleagues located a thousand miles away, so they can join the discussion using CloudXR’s bidirectional audio for collaboration. Lake | Flato, an architecture firm, is using XR streaming to enhance the design process and make design reviews easier for engineers and customers. Recently, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has started to test Omniverse XR Remote for streaming their AECO designs with virtual and augmented reality.
Lastly, in the media and entertainment industry, professionals can enhance 3D workflows with immersive design and character creation in XR. Artists with an untethered VR headset can create fully rigged characters with applications like Masterpiece Studio Pro installed on a remote server. These apps then run remotely in the cloud and can be interactively streamed to users, so artists have more freedom to move around and create virtually from anywhere.
And as we get closer to the future of virtual worlds, XR streaming from platforms like NVIDIA Omniverse — a real-time, RTX-powered simulation platform for 3D workflows — will transform how remote design teams collaborate. Globally dispersed project teams can use CloudXR and NVIDIA Omniverse to stream extended reality to mobile XR devices anywhere in the world, while maintaining the high-quality experience traditionally reserved for high-performance computers.
Explore the Next Generation of XR Streaming
The CloudXR platform includes:
- The NVIDIA CloudXR software development kit, which supports all OpenVR apps and includes code samples for a broad array of XR client devices, including phones, tablets and head-mounted displays.
- NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation software to provide the highest quality hardware-accelerated rendering on virtual machines.
- NVIDIA AI SDKs to accelerate performance and increase immersive presence.
The CloudXR SDK comes with an installer for server components and open-source client applications for streaming XR content from OpenVR applications to Android and Windows devices.
Enhance XR Experiences and Simulations on AIOs
To continue enhancing the XR streaming experience, NVIDIA and VMware are working together to make it easier for businesses and professionals to adopt AR and VR. Workspace ONE XR Hub, an advanced engineering project from VMware, includes an integration with NVIDIA CloudXR, so enterprises can easily access the highest quality XR experiences.
Workspace ONE XR Hub with CloudXR will allow users to quickly access complex virtual and augmented environments, scenes, and simulations running on powerful workstations using an AIO headset.
Workspace ONE XR Hub client application on an AIO headset enables users to securely connect to remote VR and AR content running on virtual machines. And using VMware vSphere and VMware Horizon, companies can quickly deploy XR-capable virtual machines accelerated by NVIDIA virtual GPU (vGPU) software.
The above demo showcases Workspace ONE XR Hub and CloudXR delivering real-time renderings of full-fidelity digital models from Autodesk VRED to AIO headsets, handheld phones and tablets, and even workstations.
The Autodesk VRED renderings are generated on centrally managed servers, which are built using NVIDIA RTX and NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation. The content is securely streamed to managed users and devices through Workspace ONE XR Hub with CloudXR. This demo showcases how collaborators can freely interact with one another on any device from any location in full fidelity, photorealistic immersive environments.
“From immersive training to immersive design solutions, our customers need the highest fidelity experience with the greatest mobility. Running VR applications on VMware vSphere with NVIDIA vGPU, combined with NVIDIA CloudXR to stream content to a mobile VR headset, is a great way to solve that challenge,” said Matt Coppinger, director of Product Management at VMware. “We’ve also been developing Workspace ONE XR Hub, which will provide simple and secure access to native and remote VR applications. CloudXR integrated in VMware Workspace ONE will provide the ultimate enterprise experience for users and IT.”
Easy Access to Secure, High-Quality XR Training
Additionally, users can securely stream cross-platform deployment of VR applications with the Innoactive Portal, a cloud-based solution that has revolutionized VR training and helped the workforces of major enterprises. Innoactive provides a platform to deploy VR training at scale in large organizations. Working with leading businesses around the world, Innoactive uses CloudXR to enhance VR training while keeping content secure and easily accessible from the cloud. By streaming NVIDIA CloudXR with Innoactive Portal, enterprises can deliver real-time XR training remotely, all while boosting efficiency and productivity.
With advanced XR streaming solutions like NVIDIA CloudXR, professionals around the world can work virtually from anywhere — they can experience benefits like the ability to view 3D designs without physical mockups, create physically accurate characters and animations, or visualize different car models with different materials and surfaces under various lighting conditions.
