Jaguar/Land Rover Virtual Reality Center

Jaguar Land Rover has opened a new 'Virtual Reality Center' at the Design and Engineering Center in Gaydon, UK. The 'state-of-the-art' design facility draws on advanced audio visual technologies with the projection power of the world's highest resolution projectors to significantly speed up product development cycles following an investment of £2 million.

The new Virtual Reality Center allows engineers and designers to see and interact with life-size, three-dimensional models of vehicles and components, reducing the need for physical prototypes. Using cutting-edge projection technology and advanced motion tracking of the user's head and hands, all driven by advanced virtual reality software, the total solution simulates vehicle exteriors and interiors and is capable of making bodywork appear solid or transparent, all at a resolution that is near photo-realistic.

Working in partnership with Sony, Sun Microsystems and ICIDO and Midlands-based HoloVis International Ltd, the JLR team was able to bring together all of the different components of the project to design, manufacture, install and support this next-generation virtual environment for Jaguar and Land Rover.

"We spent just over 18 months working closely with Jaguar Land Rover and our chosen system partners to design, develop, test and benchmark the proposed solution prior to the project being approved." Stuart Hetherington, Managing Director of HoloVis International said. This gave everyone the confidence in the unique technological solution we were going to create."

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