InstaVR VR Outputs – HTC Vive
- What is HTC Vive? What is Included with the HTC Vive Headset?
- Why Publish to HTC Vive? What Use Case is the HTC Vive Platform Good For?
- How Does InstaVR Improve HTC Vive Publishing? Why Choose InstaVR to Create HTC Vive Apps?
- Read About How Toyota Used InstaVR to Create an HTC Vive App Showcasing Their Offices & Employees, For Use at College Recruiting Fairs
- Pros & Cons of Using the HTC Vive
What is HTC Vive? What is Included with the HTC Vive Headset?
HTC Vive is a VR headset and platform launched in 2016 as a joint venture between HTC and Valve Corporation. Utilizing a headset tethered to a computer, HTC Vive users can enjoy extremely immersive and high resolution VR experiences. The platform also incorporates multiple cameras and two motion-tracked hand controllers, making for true Room Scale virtual reality. The HTC Vive does require a certain amount of physical space, so make sure your presentation location can accommodate the multiple camera set up before you choose it as your headset of choice. A Vive headset and hand controllers will cost you roughly $599 USD, but you’ll have to tether it to a high-powered PC. Unlike Oculus Rift though, the HTC Vive is compatible with both PCs and Macs.
Why Publish to HTC Vive? What Use Case is the HTC Vive Platform Good For?
HTC Vive is a powerful VR platform that gives users a more immersive experience than even the Gear VR or Google Daydream can provide. With Room Scale VR and more sophisticated hand controllers, the HTC Vive provides a great level of interactivity. And with the headset tethered to a computer, you can create VR experiences of unlimited length on InstaVR and run them on HTC Vive. It’s great for very high-end on-site presentations, either in your offices or at an exhibition. It’s great for sales presentations, employee training, entertainment, and more. If you have the budget for HTC Vive, it’s a great platform.
How Does InstaVR Improve HTC Vive Publishing?
Why Choose InstaVR to Create HTC Vive Apps?
Beyond having a simple but robust authoring platform, InstaVR also has a number of features that make publishing to HTC Vive easy:
- One of the very few VR platforms currently publishing to HTC Vive. With our “author once, publish to many” approach, you can easily publish the same apps you’re creating for other platforms to HTC Vive.
- InstaVR can handle robust 3D imaging, including cubemaps. HTC Vive is a popular platform for engineers, architects, designers, etc that use very high resolution, data intensive media. InstaVR can ingest images/video created on platforms like Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Lumion, V-Ray, and more.
- InstaVR allows for publishing long-form 360 VR experiences. Companies like Toyota have used InstaVR to create long-form 360 degree tours that run on the HTC Vive. At our Pro level, there’s no length limit to the VR you publish on Vive, meaning it’s great for training, education, and more.
Read About How Toyota Used InstaVR to Create an HTC Vive App
Showcasing Their Offices & Employees, For Use at College Recruiting Fairs
Read the full Toyota use case study here.
TOYOTA HIGH SYSTEM, Incorporated (100% owned by TOYOTA INDUSTRIES CORPORATION) turned to InstaVR when it wanted to take college recruitment to the next level. At most job fairs, you’re able to meet a few HR reps or employees, and get some paperwork on what the job openings entail.
But this Toyota division offered interactive 360 video tours of their offices using InstaVR + the HTC Vive. The virtual guided tours, offered at college recruitment fairs, allowed Toyota High System to stand out amongst other companies, generating significant interest in their booth and company. By offering such a unique and interesting way to meet the company, Toyota surely left a strong impression with job candidates.
Creating the VR application was easy. The Toyota High System team recorded a guided 360-degree tour of their spacious office park, allowing users of the app to experience what a “day in the life” would be like working there. Publishing the app was as simple as uploading the videos to InstaVR, creating the navigation between scenes, and hitting the publish button. This saved the company a tremendous amount of time and money versus having to code an app or even hire an outside firm. They were able to complete the app completely in-house, with no engineering or computer science experience required.
Mr. Osawa Takehito, Solution Sales Department, who introduced the use of InstaVR and HTC VIVE to his company said: “Initially, we created a ‘VR Office Tour’ for enabling candidates to virtually visit our offices using InstaVR’s GearVR output feature. By supporting HTC VIVE, it is now also possible for our app users to watch for a longer time with higher picture quality. TOYOTA can broaden the range of VR experiences we produce by utilizing HTC Vive output capability.”
Pros
- High performance, fully immersive, with interactivity via two hand controllers
- Connected to power supply, so no battery drain similar to Gear VR
- Mac version is compatible, and publish-ready through InstaVR
Cons
- Not mobile, so not as good for travel or showing to a large group
- Requires a connection to a fairly high end computer to run
- Sensors required, which necessitate fairly large space for set-up (3m x 3m)
