Advanced technology like augmented reality is already here, in our smartphones and tablets. In addition, it is no longer necessary to download specific apps thanks to Facebook Spark AR, a functionality available on the Facebook ecosystem where users can enjoy augmented reality content while on Facebook and Instagram.

The big question here is: are those tools useful for companies?
Can they generate real value or are they only good to have fun?

The Safilo VirtualEyes project is an excellent example that explains the enormous potential of immersive technologies already available and easy to access.

When we think of applying digital solutions to improve business processes we need to consider the following steps: identifying the goals, understand any possible complications, thinking of the users as the core part of the app and analyse the context.

Safilo is a leader in design, production, and distribution of sunglasses, prescription frames and sports glasses. In line with traditional Italian design and its manufacturing expertise dating back to 1878, Safilo transforms design projects into high-quality products.

Safilo is an integrated industrial model capable of overseeing the entire production-distribution chain: research and technological innovation, product design and development, production, marketing, and communication. Safilo distributes in about one hundred thousand selected points of sale all over the world with direct branches in 40 countries – in North America and Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Asia-Pacific and China – and a global network of more than 50 partners.

We’ve started the project with the Uqido Deep Dive.
We sat at the table involving Safilo’s key decision-makers and sales operators in Design Thinking sessions across Italy, France, and Spain, with the support of sales representatives in the field.

Everything started from a question from the Global Sales Manager: can augmented reality lead to optimizing the production process, making the distribution of all new collections anywhere in the world more efficient?

With the Uqido Deep Dive we could define the primary need: coming up with a solution for Safilo’s sellers which was including an entire collection of glasses at hand.

It was, therefore, essential to assess, together with all major agents in Italy, Spain, and France, how this development would impact their current sales process and technical capabilities.

We used mood boards, wireframes, and mockups to quickly create a prototype for future users to test. To understand their needs, their difficulties, and to ensure the appropriate functionalities.

Safilo has hundreds of operating agents all over the world. Each of them needs a sample of several dozens of eyewear models. This leads to high costs for production and distribution. The consequence of this is the financial impact and the production of these samples, which contributes to CO2 emissions for samples that may never end up on sale.

10,000 models are estimated to be produced in a year. Thus it is not possible to imagine a CG Artist creating each one before uploading them onto an app. It would involve months of work for collections that do not last more than a season. The engineering challenge of the pilot project was to create the 3D samples starting from models already in Safilo’s possession without compromising on the quality of the products.

It was vital to have an app that could upload onto any system. It had to be immediate, intuitive, and have a large sample of glasses, photorealistic rendering, and easily usable by a large number of salesmen to be distributed all over the world. In addition, Safilo required the rights to insert or eliminate the models in the app itself.

The aim of this project is to provide a tool to support growth and to enhance the sales process. When a new collection is released, agents all over the world will receive every sample and colour variant in real-time, without waiting for the physical model to arrive, reducing time and environmental impact.

Having identified the needs and the best tool to meet them, the development phase began, involving our UI/UX designers, alongside our developers engaged in converting Safilo models into 3D samples in AR and creating the app infrastructure in which to upload them. Our XR specialists who adapted the models were involved, to convert them for the real environment, as projected, to achieve the most realistic product possible. A mixture of skills for real teamwork.

The development process was on three parallel tracks. An engine that creates the conversion of Safilo models into 3D models. A server infrastructure capable of processing a large number of complex elements. A back-end with an ad-hoc interface designed for Safilo to manage and control content. Finally optimising the sample by analysing the light and environment to create a realistic product.

The sample conversion algorithm works at multiple levels: math conversion, texture simplification, adding effects and maintaining material quality.

The server instantly supports and processes Safilo’s entire collections. Bearing in mind that each of these has about 600 models and that each model has an average of 5 SKUs, that is 3,000 references per collection.

The Safilo AR – VirtualEyes platform is licensed to Safilo and is suitable for many other industries.

This pilot project reveals the development of digital tools targeting the sales and customer experience, as well as exhibiting the samples for further use.

Today, thanks to Uqido, Safilo has an engine that can produce the AR Ready samples of each of its eyewear and SKU (colour variation), which means it has a vast sample portfolio for other business opportunities.

The quality of the final product, made by choosing augmented reality, leaves no doubt about the photorealistic rendering, speed of creation and its viability.

In addition to being an effective tool for agents, this technology is used in showrooms. Through futuristic Virtual Try-On Mirrors, it can display AR products online and enable social media marketing campaigns (Spark AR makes it possible for anyone to try Safilo glasses with their smartphone).

Involving users in the design process is an opportunity to create digital products that are functional without reducing quality.

Technology is key in the formula for success. It supports companies that have skills, market knowledge, and a vision.

Augmented reality has proven to be a tool capable of naturally improving business processes without negative results. It adds value to company products, which can be innumerable, as in the case of Safilo, or with dimensions difficult to demonstrate as in the case of  Rield Phasys.

The main advantages are time, competitiveness, savings and considerable reduction of emissions due to the production and transportation of physical products.

Virtual reality and augmented reality are powerful and versatile but only a few far-sighted companies see the solution to many of the challenges in business today. Besides Safilo, other global players are already in the game: some commendable examples in our network are Nice, Ikea and GPI.

The cognitive process, i.e. the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding, in human beings occurs through thought, senses and experience.

Up to 60% of this process depends on the sense of sight and hearing, the remaining 40% is attributed to the practical or abstract application of what is stored.

A study carried out by the National Laboratory for Education in the US states that rates of mnestic retention (i.e. the ability to remember what you have experienced) increase to 75% when referring to the use of augmented reality within the educational process.

If, in addition to the above, we add that specialised training in the medical field, it involves added risks for the safety of students and teachers. When they find organic material and places to study it represents a considerable cost as well. So we can immediately see the potential of augmented reality in promoting safe and sustainable learning.

With the collaboration of Prof. Vladimiro Vida, Director of the UOC of Paediatric Cardiac Surgery and Congenital Heart Diseases and with the student of Medicine Francesco Bertelli, we analysed the usual learning path and the tools commonly used. The solution adopted so far has been the 3D printing of organs of the human body made by a software that uses scans obtained by means of CT, ECO and magnetic resonance imaging. These 3D models allow students to touch, see and dissect organs in the same way as real ones.

The need was therefore to obtain models as close as possible to real organs that could be fully analysed and dissected as if they were in the hands of a student. It was therefore vital not only to have the 3D model but also to conceive ways of interacting with it, all within a complex range of hearts with different shapes and different pathologies.

What can augmented reality offer more than a 3D printed model or even a real organ?

The positive impact, as explained above, has reduced risks and costs, but this technology also allows you to have a huge amount of material, models and information within a simple smartphone. It is not necessary to make, transport and store physical objects, moreover during the analysis more information can be requested of the system that, through a careful study of the UI, makes them appear on virtual models.

An accurate analysis of the most suitable technology has been carried out to reach, first of all, a mobile app able to host 3D models with related information and, subsequently, the hearts in augmented reality.

An initial MVP allowed us to submit the results of our study to the University of Padua. The findings on interfaces, navigation flow and digital asset yield were then endorsed and formed the basis for the development of a complete and structured app.

Therefore, all the screens were designed to allow users to access the multiple functionalities through a menu able to manage a large amount of information in a very intuitive way.

At the same time, 3D models of organ cavities have been optimised for use in real-time. Starting from assets already in possession of the University of Padua and giving them a photorealistic appearance as the result of applying high quality textures from the photogrammetry technique.

Augmented reality hearts can then be dissected and enriched with information to provide a complete experience for students and without compromising the quality of teaching. In addition, to maintain the flow of normal teaching, the virtual dissection of the models follows the process carried out during echocardiographic analysis: Long axis parasternal (PLAX), Short axis parasternal (PSSAX) and 4 chamber apical (A4C).

These models allow a precise morphological and functional analysis of the organ and of each of its parts.

To highlight areas of the heart with defects using colour, we had to create the UV Maps, which were not present in the scans. To do this, we painted directly in 3D, making it intuitive and easy to perform. The UV Maps also made it possible to effectively and correctly distribute the textures on the 3D models.

The development team had to manage many models in a short time, consequently the latest generation UV unwrapper was used, which reduces manual work and shortens development time.

In addition, we decided to select only one set of textures for all hearts, so that the mobile application would remain light and efficient (less than 60MB) while maintaining a 4K resolution.

A further challenge was to enrich the 3D models, both used through a 3D viewer and displayed in augmented reality, with the information in written form. This text had to appear in the least invasive way possible but, at the same time, it had to be easily readable. 

The result of all this is a non-linear user experience. Each student can interact in a different way. They can use different models with related sections, without a set path for each user but rather fostering different experiences adapted to the needs of all users. A training that is in some ways personalised and, therefore, more effective while managing and not increasing costs.

The output is therefore a mobile app for iOS and Android operating systems that uses ARKit and ARCore for real-time 3D visualization of the environment around us. Simple 3D visualization is also provided for older devices that do not support augmented reality.

The next developments include the possibility to use WebAR technology to enjoy the models without the need to download an app, minimising additional effort.

Augmented reality, like other immersive technologies, has a strong evocative power that allows users to engage fully in their experiences, as in the case of Nice Spa e Phasys VR.

In the training sector this kind of content allows a greater learning experience thanks to the process being comparable to the real one and lived through the normal didactic tools.

This effectiveness then meets efficiency. Virtual assets that can be analysed and manipulated anywhere and at any time drastically reduces the cost of finding and disposing of real organs, of using a specific space and equipment prepared for each student.

We are therefore facing an important evolution in the world of specialist training, which comes from the potential of new technology like augmented reality, already widely used and easy to interact with. A simple smartphone is all that is required to place virtual objects in the environment created around us, and to interact with them simply takes taps on the screen.

The University of Padua, close to 800 years of history, has embraced this new technology to improve the teaching of its PhD students in medicine, testifying to how the technology has been really useful; it offers a real benefit and fits seamlessly into processes developed over years and years of work.

This is what happened with Salesforce, a US cloud computing company based in San Francisco and operating in 36 countries around the world, and in Italy since 2003. Founded in 1999, Salesforce enables companies of all sizes and industries to leverage the powerful technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (Cloud, Mobile, Social, IoT, and Artificial Intelligence) and get closer to their customers.

In particular, Salesforce wanted to impress the participants of  Basecamp Milano, its landmark event on the latest trends in business technology and innovation, by combining immersive technologies, their business vision and that of the famous entrepreneur Brunello Cucinelli. The aim was to translate the managerial visions into an experience for Basecamp’s guests, and utilising the evocative power of immersive technologies.

But how can one translate a vision into something concrete, tangible (at least virtually), recognisable and impactful? Moreover, on what part of the message should the emphasis be placed?

Is it possible to predict the reaction of the public? And again, which technologies to use?

We answered all of these questions with a three-day Uqido Deep Dive course that was attended by Uqido’s creative minds, game design experts and Salesforce managers. The UDD process has a typical creation-prototype-test-feedback structure that starts with goals and ends with defining a set of possible solutions and identifying the best one.

With a series of tools and exercises, the best technology was identified and what the experience should contain. We then moved on to define the experience, the mood, the assets, and the dynamics that govern it.

The result? Starting from the objectives, i.e. to involve and excite Basecamp guests and communicate with them, the best way to reach them was identified, a virtual reality with a meditative experience created in computer graphics.

The output of Uqido Deep Dive’s path was a complete Game Design Document that described the experience in detail, from here it would be possible to fulfill the real experience.

Once again it is clear that an in-depth analysis of the context, needs and objectives is fundamental in order to identify the best solutions. The same approach has been adopted in other projects such as Pam Panorama, 3Bee, Safilo and Archiva.