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Ford Is Using Microsoft's HoloLens To Design Cars In Augmented Reality (theverge.com)

Ford is using Microsoft's HoloLens headset to let designers quickly model out changes to cars, trucks, and SUVs in augmented reality. This allows designers to see the changes on top of an existing physical vehicle, instead of the traditional clay model approach to car design. The Verge reports: Ford is still using clay models, but the HoloLens can be used to augment additional 3D models without having to build every single design prototype with clay. It's one of the more interesting ways we've seen businesses use Microsoft's HoloLens, and it's something customers will never see. Microsoft is planning to hold a Windows Mixed Reality launch event on October 3rd in San Francisco. We're not expecting to hear about a HoloLens successor, but we should get a better idea of what apps and games we'll see coming for Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

5 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Give it up Microsoft by itamblyn · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's actually pretty neat technology. I was impressed

  2. No they aren't. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What they are doing is using it to shape the exterior of a car model. There is a lot of engineering that goes into designing cars and this is used for exactly jack shit of that engineering. So no, they aren't designing any cars with it, they are just replacing real clay with virtual clay.

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  3. Re: Give it up Microsoft by gravewax · · Score: 2

    No I wouldn't, but then I am not running a multi million dollar design/engineering project that these are designed for nor do I have a spare quarter of a million to drop on a set of devices and implementation. All indications are sales and adoption have been pretty good thus far.

  4. and as I replied when the Onion got ahold of this by swschrad · · Score: 2

    The next version will allow engineers to also see the safety recalls next to the virtual car.

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  5. Hololens Experience form a physics professo friend by Dripdry · · Score: 2

    I can see why Ford would try this move. A physics teacher friend of mine purchased a Hololens to work on a project that ultimately (finally!) landed him a tenure track position at a University. He showed me his demo, magnetic field lines given a point charge in space; simple stuff, but a neat idea to help students learn.

    When he put the thing on me it felt pretty nice. Bit heavy, but comfy. Booted it up and the whooshing of scanning the room was impressive. Then he showed me the Solar System program. It completely blew my mind, could walk around the room, lean in to see things, zoom and manipulate with my bare hands in the air; I've tried VR, but after a few minutes with AR I was ready to hand over my bucks for the next version of Hololens, no questions asked. The current one would be GREAT for engineers and architects, maybe medical applications too, but not quite there for consumer.

    I'm a convert, honestly. I'd love to get one.

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