Integrating Data Exchange Between Business Applications and AR/VR Applications
The number of enterprise companies making business applications using augmented and virtual reality increases exponentially, with estimates putting the market at $300 billion by 2024. Thanks to the success of AR and VR entertainment applications, enterprising businesses are realizing the ability that AR and VR applications have in engaging their audiences. Businesses want to build augmented and virtual reality applications in areas close to training, therapy, and support. However, once the AR or VR application is created, businesses find themselves asking “How do I integrate my AR/VR applications into the rest of my business processes?”. The solution lies within the cohesion between your virtual environment and the cloud. This blog will discuss the AR/VR development method in general as well as the advantages of using Azure and Unity together as your development platform.
What You Need to Integrate AR/VR to Business Applications
In its simplest form, any totally functional application consists of two components: a front-end display to capture or display information and a back-end to manage that data. For AR and VR applications, developers can possibly build the front-end using a gaming platform because of its ease of use in getting intended results. The back-end process can be cloud-based or built in a local environment. The challenge is getting the two components to seamlessly interact with each other.
Integrating business and AR and VR applications needs two areas of functionality – the communication of data between the front-end and the back-end and the ability to control the AR and VR application from the back-end application. The most effective approach in application integration is to create dynamic architectures – applications that can pass parameters back and forth to control the application functionality or to send/retrieve the data. Unfortunately, in AR and VR applications, some of the data which is transferred can be graphically complex. This needs a lot of processing power and high bandwidth. Therefore, we have found that using the power of the Cloud is crucial in achieving the most effective results.
Using the Power of Cloud to Exchange Data
The benefit of using the Cloud is its flexibility – processing power may easily scale up or down depending on the amount of data your application needs. This is important when integrating with AR/VR applications, because if using untethered headsets – the processing power of the application is limited to the processing power of the headset’s mobile processor. By extending GPU power to the Cloud, the application can maximize its potential – processing power sometimes gains more than 500%.
For example, TECHEGY LIMITED has made applications that create big, complex 3D models which are then viewed in the HoloLens or Oculus. Using Azure Cloud and a tool called Azure Remote Rendering (ARR), we can stream graphical data to the HoloLens allowing the headset to display high–resolution, multimillion polygon models. That process would not be possible without the power of Azure.
In addition to graphical information, application data must be transferred between AR/VR applications and business processes. Applications can extract data stored in the Cloud and send it to AR/VR applications. Or on the other hand, data collected in AR/VR applications can be stored in the Cloud. With this interaction happening between the Headset and the Cloud, data is being accessed and processed, dynamically, in real-time, which is important for a variety of use cases.
Using Responsive Architecture to Control AR/VR Applications
Interactive business to AR/VR application processes may require some level of control, at the same time, what is displayed in a headset needs to be controlled dynamically by another application. This dynamic interaction is enabled by using a responsive architecture – typically done on a designing step of the development.
For instance, in a therapy application, what a patient experiences when wearing a headset may need to be adjusted by a clinician, based on the therapy results which are being measured. Those adjustments need to be made in real–time with as little interruption to the therapy session as possible. This requires a process that can adjust patient experiences dynamically as changes are applied by the clinician via a separate application. This way the patient in the headset can immediately experience adjustments as they are made and each therapy session is tailored based upon patient response and clinician decisions.
Getting the Job Done
AR/VR development is a complex process and differs from the development process used in more traditional business applications. As a result, software development companies typically specialize in one area of development. So, when companies want to implement their AR/VR applications with web-based processes, they need to hire two companies to get the work done. This makes project management much more difficult. Multiple platforms require different skill sets meaning increased resources and all including higher costs. Moreover, managing multiple development teams makes it difficult for companies to accurately estimate the scope of work needed to create the final product. Therefore, if you can find one company that can do both front-end and back-end development, project work should flow more efficiently.
The Wiz Soft specializes in both Azure and Unity-based development processes to create fully integrated, scalable, and dynamic software solutions for our business partners. By understanding both the visual and analytical aspects of Augmented Reality development, our applications can easily transfer, edit, and interact with data in the Cloud in a user-friendly way. We have found that utilizing this approach has resulted in applications that are easier to use and directly impact the day-to-day working experience of our clients.
