Mixed Reality technology blends real-world objects with digital content, interactively, and in real-time. Together with holographic technology, it brings the models out of the screen and helps people efficiently interpret physical and digital information, and the spatial relations between them.

The projected holograms can appear life-like and can move, be shaped, and change according to interaction with the user or the physical environment. Gestures, gaze and voice commands can be used to navigate and control the presented content.

Trimble has been deploying mixed reality in our products since 1997 when our first patent for an outdoor augmented reality application was filed. Since then, Trimble has teamed up with over a dozen hardware and software providers to be among the first to bring relevant mixed reality products to the enterprise market.

Mixed reality and spatial computing brings the model out of the screen and provide users the ability to engage and interact with data more intuitively. Moreover, unleashing the 3D model democratizes the data to a diverse group of stakeholders, offering a more natural way to experience and understand the work to be done.

Virtual reality (think Oculus Rift and HTC Vive) is a fully immersive technology, secluding the user to visualize only digital content.

Augmented reality (see: Trimble SiteVision) technology combines the physical and virtual worlds together by overlaying digital information into the user’s environment, typically via a two-dimensional display.

Mixed reality (think Microsoft HoloLens) technology can be thought of as a more advanced augmented reality; it recognizes its surroundings and allows the digital content to interact with the real-world in three dimensions.

Our customers in AEC are using apps like SketchUp Viewer and Trimble Connect to visualize 3D design earlier and more effectively than ever before, rapidly iterate on design ideas in 3D, collaborate with others (both collocated and remote) while immersed in the design, overlay designs on the real world for things such as clash detection and renovation visualization, and use models in the real world as an “instruction guide” for actual production. This is significantly improving data communication and interpretation to reduce rework, increase productivity, and improve overall job quality.

In the Civil and Utilities spaces, customers can use a tool like SiteVision to locate buried utilities or visualize their design before undertaking their daily work. If they get stuck, they can use Trimble PULSE to call in an expert to remotely guide their work.

In the mining industry, our customers are using Visual Intelligence to interact with digital twins of their open pit mines on a tabletop or immersively while sitting at their desks thousands of miles away. They can overlay important information such as stockpiles volumes, ore movements and grade, and near real-time locations of machinery and trucks.

We’ve just started to crack open the possibilities of this technology. Have an idea? Let us know!

Yes! Mixed reality technology is being used every day by tens of thousands of enterprise customers.

At Trimble, we’re currently selling five different software solutions targeting different industries. See the ‘Applications’ section of our webpage to learn more about each.

In addition, we also offer a few pieces of hardware enabling our customers to put mixed reality to use out in the field; the Trimble Hard Hat Solution for Microsoft HoloLens and Trimble SiteVision.

Trimble’s Hard Hat Solution for Microsoft HoloLens can be added to your existing HoloLens device to ensure worker safety when using mixed reality in environments requiring PPE. For full details, please review the Health & Safety Guide here. The solution is available today via our web store.

Join us at an upcoming event or contact us for more information!