VR in the automotive industry

Virtual reality technology in the automotive industry becomes the initiative for sales for vehicles producers and dealers. They can demonstrate and market their products via showrooms, where potential users observe, examine and experience 3d machine exterior and interior, and test driving.

VR/AR in the automotive sphere stimulates the manufacturers to produce the cars using immersive experiences and clients practice hi-tech to purchase the right product by checking it with innovative technologies. VR automotive software can suggest contextual help to users and assist them to run the vehicle correctly by providing navigation and detection of errors. In addition to this fact, vehicle apps may boost the sales of cars quicker than the real advertising. Immersive programs can help drivers feel the potential car, its design, imitations of dangerous situations and their interior environment before the purchase, details of the car.

VR in the automotive industry generally is used for mass-produce and client service. The goal of the VR application is to display all pros and cons of the physical models, the experience of vehicle maintenance, and checking its safety. VR software may provide textual, visual, and sound instructions. Virtual reality automotive industry flourishes now because of its ability to implement hi-tech in every stage of manufacturing.

Virtual Reality car showrooms are so popular nowadays. They demonstrate the design of the vehicle, the model, the inner parts (details) of the car. A prototype is a full and comprehensive copy of the physical model. A user may transform specific components – the color and the material of the car prototype – to find out what mixture or variant the users desire most.

Virtual car design is based on the conception which designers, developers, and customers agree on meeting before the development itself. For the projects headsets are used to manipulate the virtual vehicle, draw and add some car details in the machine during the creative session.

As for the moment of VR designing, this should be effective and high-performance cooperation of designers and engineers to produce high-quality machines. The virtual prototype of a vehicle is usually a result of 3d rendering and digitized sketches with some additional iterations. Virtual car cases may show the customers all vehicle components, structure details, possible modifications (color, texture, material), and so on.

Our company ServReality can create for potential purchasers a customized VR car case.

Today we showed a VR implementation in an automotive showcase. Our team describes this project, accounting clients, their goals, the required stuff, tools, development process, and necessary deadlines.

Our customers: Two automobile producers Skoda (Volkswagen) and Ford, who were going to implement VR and AR hi-tech in their company services

Goals of the project: to create a VR training simulator, which lets customers experience the vehicle without physical contact and any damage or loss advance the exterior and interior 3D design with special composition to upgrade the product before the final release and sales.
Required stuff:

• 3d animators, architects
• Data manager
• Senior developers (C++, C#. Unreal Engine)
• Business analyst
• QA
• Project managers

Used tools are:

• Samsung Gear VR
• HTC Vive
• Sony PlayStation VR
• Oculus Rift
• Google Cardboard

Company automotive VR software development has 4 basic stages:

• Concept generation, the software architecture formation
• Application prototyping
• Software and content creation
• Testing, QA, bugs fixing

Deadlines of the projects: 5-6 months from the idea-architecture phase and its constant adjustments.