Extended Reality mixes the physical and the virtual world

Tove Jaensson, Vinnova

Extended Reality is an umbrella term for techniques that combine physical and virtual environments. It includes, among others, Virtual Reality (VR), which creates a computer-generated environment that the user interacts with, and Augmented Reality (AR), which adds virtual objects and data to the physical world.

It is about spatial or so-called enveloping experiences that can be conveyed through sound, image and haptics - which provide an experience of touch through things like vibrations and movements.

- It makes it possible, for example, to use digital technology to feel when you push a ball or to move around a building and see what is behind the next corner, says Tove Jaensson, who works in the area of digital transformation at Vinnova.

Development is fast

- It is one of the most exciting areas of technology right now because so much has happened in data power, AI, mobile networks with faster speed and other things that make the technology more accessible and cheaper, she says.

XR has long been used in games and entertainment, but is now increasingly being used in other areas such as medicine, urban planning, education and industry. The potential areas of use are many.

- For example, it is possible to train surgeons and simulate an operation on your heart. In industry, it is possible to provide training on machines or to do demonstrations for customers. In urban planning, XR can be used to create a digital copy of a city and simulate traffic, construction projects, weather and floods in a way that makes it easier to understand how it will look, says Tove Jaensson.

Strategically important technology

Vinnova has singled out Extended Reality as a strategically important technology area and is making several investments, including collaborations with the USA and funding of innovation project. Vinnova also finances feasibility studies for a future platform for collaboration within XR.

- We are trying to get important actors to gather and work together. We realized that there is no center in Sweden for XR in the same way that there is for AI. Then we get to help build it up, says Tove Jaensson.

At the beginning of September, Vinnova participated in and arranged an XR hackathon in Stockholm, together with Meta and XR Bootcamp.

- It was an opportunity to invite lots of developers, students, large companies, entrepreneurs and researchers where there was a lot of networking, she says.

Much of the development is done by large tech companies in the US such as Meta, Google and Microsoft, but Tove Jaenson believes that Sweden has the opportunity to develop solutions within XR.

- We have world-leading game developers and in Sweden there is knowledge in, among other things, interaction design, visualization and image analysis which is important in this area, she says.