How will the metasverse change our lives? The recent completion of the first phase of the "Metasurverse Urban Space" project in Zhangjiang Science City shows the prospects of this "new track". The space, built by Weizhi Technology and centered on the Company's R&D building, actions, covers 4.1 square kilometers of the surrounding area, upgrading the physical space of office buildings, science parks, streets and business districts into a "meta-space" that integrates the virtual and the real.
This demonstration project has attracted the attention of Zhangjiang Group, which has launched the project "Zhangjiangyuan Space Science City", inviting Weizhi Technology to participate in the planning and design. Some insiders predict that "meta-universe space" is the next generation network platform following the mobile Internet, with huge potential for economic development; AR (augmented reality) glasses and mobile phones are the mainstream intelligent terminals entering the space, and AR glasses may be as popular as mobile phones in the future.
Go to Zhangjiang to see the fusion of virtual and real world
Yesterday, the reporter came to the Research and development building of Actions, and experienced the "meta-cosmic urban space". Stepping out of the elevator, Wang Jinsong, head of PGVerse technology, was greeted with a tablet. Through the tablet screen, the entire physical space on the floor becomes cool -- at the gate of the company, the reporter saw a cute virtual bear waving to greet everyone. Walking past the reception desk of the company, Dr. Tao Chuang, founder of Weizhi Technology, appeared as a "digital doper", introducing the space-time artificial intelligence technology developed by the company and TRON series of high-precision space acquisition modeling system to the audience. Coming to the exhibition hall, the physical space here is ordinary, but its "meta-universe space" has four exhibition themes, namely forum, Party construction, low-carbon life and national trend, which can be arbitrarily switched, so that the audience can see different display effects and interactive scenes.
"The biggest characteristic of 'meta-universe space' is the fusion of virtual and real. Through the mobile APP developed by our company, we can experience both virtual space and physical world, and the two worlds interact and merge." "In the future, when AR glasses become mature, we can wear glasses into the 'meta-space' and interact with space with gestures and voice," Said Wang jinsong.
In addition to the office floor, Weizhi also upgraded the physical space in many places. On the ground floor of actions Research & Development Building, every type of coffee on the virtual menu of the cafe is in a three-dimensional form. When the reporter orders an Americano, the image of the CENTRAL Business District appears in front of him, conveying the business atmosphere brought by Americano. Out of the building, came to the park, the reporter through the tablet screen to see a root of underground pipes. Their virtual images appear in real geographical locations for municipal management and maintenance personnel to click on their maintenance information.
The streets and green squares near the office buildings also have a large "meta-space". Point your tablet and phone camera at some office buildings and see how far they are from you, along with descriptions and rental information. Virtual traffic signs at intersections are equipped with advertising Spaces, demonstrating the future advertising monetisation capabilities of metasurverse. Arrived at the colorful green square, three restaurants in the virtual advertising display in front of the reporter - burgers, bread and coffee products in front of the store shaking, consumption coupons and discount information floating in the air, to attract people to buy. On the square, there are concerts, giant clowns, lucky bags and balloons and other virtual images, very lively.
How is "metasurspace" built
How was the "meta-cosmic urban space" built? According to Dr. Tao chuang, the company has developed a space computing engine, which is a platform that connects the upper application experience of the metasomes with the lower physical world. It contains five core technologies, including spatial twinning, spatial perception, spatial cognition, spatial positioning and spatial interaction, which can realize the recognition and tracking of dynamic objects in city-level large scenes, as well as high-concurrency, large-scale real-time interaction and multi-user interaction.
Tao Chuang, the former general manager of Microsoft's Virtual Earth department, is an expert in spatial information computing. He told reporters that the "meta-cosmic urban Space" accurately superposes digital information on the physical world, allowing users to see the corresponding digital information when they see a real object, and interact with it through gestures, voice and other ways. The digital twin of urban space is one of the key technologies to realize the symbiosis of digital and real and the fusion of virtual and real.
In the field of space twin technology, Weizhi technology has a number of invention patents. The PGVerse team has developed an end-to-end cloud integrated "space metasomes" computing platform that can efficiently model centimeter-scale spatial twinning of each region to build the underlying computing and service cloud of the "metasomes".
AR glasses technology bottleneck to be broken
According to the Action Plan of Shanghai Municipality to Cultivate a New Track of "Meta-universe" (2022-2025), it is necessary to grasp the value orientation of "meta-universe" to promote reality and strengthen reality, and promote high-quality economic development based on improving the production efficiency of the real economy and meeting the needs of the people for a better life.
In Tao Chuang's opinion, "meta-cosmic urban space" conforms to this value orientation, because it is not a completely virtual online world, but a physical-digital world integrating the virtual and the real. He predicts that this space will foster a phenomenon industrial ecology, covering various industries such as municipal administration, culture and tourism, retail, marketing and finance, creating new consumer demand. "In the future, people will wear meta-cosmic devices like AR glasses in a physical store, and if they don't see virtual space, digital information about products and digital human guides, they will say how empty the store is."
Some industry insiders predict that AR glasses, as smart terminals entering the "meta-universe," will be launched on a large scale within the next five years and gradually become consumer electronic products like smart phones. Dr. Tao chuang and Han Lei, vice president of production and research at Liangfengtai, share this view. Since 2015, Liangfengtai has developed a number of AR glasses for enterprise users and AR platform with end-cloud collaboration. Unlike VR (virtual reality) headsets that display pure virtual images, AR glasses allow people to see both the physical world and virtual images at the same time, and can be used in more scenarios than VR headsets, Han said.
Nowadays, AR intelligent terminal this "new track" is getting hotter and hotter. According to Bloomberg, Apple is expected to release the first generation of AR smart glasses next year. "Internet celebrity" Luo Yonghao recently announced that he will start his own business again to develop AR products.
However, AR glasses to enter thousands of households, there are still many technical bottlenecks. Han Lei believes that these aspects are particularly critical: First, the imaging equipment (lens) is not mature, either thick or thin, but the imaging quality and field Angle of view are not up to the standard, and the rate of quality and cost performance are also lacking; Second, battery life needs to be improved, while ensuring that the weight of the battery is not too heavy, otherwise it will affect user comfort; Third, in the user virtual real interaction, holographic communication and other links, the existing software is still unable to achieve some product functions with "science fiction feeling".
To this end, he suggested that the government strengthen its r&d layout in these technologies. In addition, the government can promote domestic leading enterprises to jointly formulate standards in terms of AR data format and transmission protocol, so that the AR products developed by various enterprises can be interconnected and promote the faster development of the industrial ecology of "meta-space".