Virtual reality
AugmentedrealityHype Or serious business[
[Virtual reality
AugmentedrealityHype Or serious business[
[
Table of contents
1 Introduction
2 What is virtual, mixed & augmented reality
2.1Virtual, mixed & augmented reality
2.2The emerging value chain
2.3Users and developers
3 International market
3.1 Forecast report
3.2 How did the VR market perform in 2016
3.3 How did the AR market perform in 2016
4 Market research
4.1 Research veri cation
4.2 Users
4.3 Developers
4.4 Market needs
5 Conclusion
Colophon
References
Virtual reality
AugmentedrealityHype Or serious business[
[
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Virtual reality
AugmentedrealityHype Or serious business[
[
1 Introduction
We conducted this survey for therst time in 2016 to answer the following question: is
Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) an exaggerated hype or a business with real potential
Today, one year later, we want to know how the market has developed since then. And if we
compare the two polls, what can we say about the future potential of VR/AR
To answer these questions, we doubled the number of respondents to more than 600
and distributed the questionnaire with the assistance of seven other organizations:
Mikrocentrum, iTanks, Oost NV, Brainport Industries, VRDays Europe, VRBase Amsterdam
and Innovation Quarter.
This year’s market research was conducted by interviewing 613 respondents who are
developers or users of AR or VR. Like last year, the respondents are mainly active in the
engineering, manufacturing and industry sectors. We included participants from the
Netherlands, Belgium and Germany to create an international perspective.
This report is structured as follows. After the introduction we provide a general explanation
of the VR/AR market and its current status. Then we analyze the international market by
comparing last year’s forecasts with the actual results, we discuss the outcome of our own
market survey and we conclude this report by circling back to our original question: is VR/AR
hype or serious business
I wish you a pleasant reading. If you have additional questions or require more information,
please contact me at csanderink@bom.nl, on Twitter (@sanderink) or LinkedIn
(coensanderink).
On behalf of the participating partners,
Coen Sanderink
Business Developer
Brabant Development Agency (BOM)
Virtual reality
AugmentedrealityHype Or serious business[
[2 WHAT IS VIRTUAL, MIXED &
AUGMENTED REALITY
Virtual reality (VR) is about simulating a reality based on 3D-models within a computer.
Mixed reality (MR) concerns the amalgamation of the actual world with a virtual one.
Augmented reality (AR) is adding information to the actual world. This additional
information can be presented to the user by means of a smartphone, tablet, beamer, pair of
smart glasses or a head-mounted display (HMD).
Visual 1 Virtual, mixed and augmented reality.
Development of therst VR-glasses started in the 1960s. At the end of the 1990s, games
and new devices like Nintendo’s ‘Virtual Boy’ gave the appearance of a breakthrough in
VR. Eventually, technical constraints like weight, inadequate graphics and a shortage of
available content hindered development. In the past few years, advancements, especially in
smartphone technology, have raised expectations for an actual breakthrough in VR/AR.
It is widely expected that virtual and augmented reality may cause a revolution in technology.
At the very least, these technologies will lead to new branches and new ways to work and
communicate. Within companies, departments at the end of a process like services will
come into direct contact with departments at the beginning of the process like research and
development. For example, some companies use VR/AR to train their service technicians in
maintaining machines that are still in development (see the Oc / Canon user case on page 7).
One aspect that always plays a role in adoption processes is the so-called horseless
carriage syndrome
Some say the adoption of VR and AR technologies can be compared to the emergence of the
Internet and the smartphone. One aspect that always plays a role in adoption processes, is
the so-called ‘horseless carriage syndrome’. In other words, when people are faced with new
innovations, they revert to older more familiar technology applications. For example, the
rst automobiles looked like carriages and therst websites were similar to brochures. Only
as time progresses, people can fully grasp the possibilities and unique applications of new
technologies.。