{"id":14647,"date":"2014-04-12T17:50:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T21:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=14647"},"modified":"2014-04-15T17:51:52","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T21:51:52","slug":"qauto-fords-virtual-reality-pioneer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2014\/04\/qauto-fords-virtual-reality-pioneer","title":{"rendered":"Q&Auto: Ford’s virtual reality pioneer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elizabeth<\/p>\n

\n
Elizabeth Baron is a Ford Motor Co. specialist in virtual reality technology. (Ford)<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

At San Francisco\u2019s\u00a0Game Developer\u2019s Conference in March<\/a>, virtual reality stole the show with Facebook icing the cake\u00a0with its purchase of<\/a>\u00a0virtual reality startup and goggles maker Oculus for a staggering $2 billion.<\/p>\n

But Silicon Valley has nothing over the Rust Belt.<\/p>\n

Meet\u00a0Elizabeth Baron, Ford\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>virtual reality and advanced visualization technical specialist, whose team used\u00a0their Immersion Lab<\/a>\u00a0to help develop the heart-stopping 2015 Ford Mustang, introduced at January\u2019s Detroit Auto Show. Deep in the bowels of Ford\u2019s Dearborn tech center, Ford engineers wearing Oculus helmets immerse themselves in real time with colleagues in other labs across the globe. Sitting in virtual cars, they critique and alter everything from windshield wipers to dashboards.\u00a0Watch a video here.<\/a><\/p>\n

I strapped on goggles myself for an eye-opening look at the future of car design and American leisure. I crawled over, under, and through a \u201915 pony car that existed only virtually. Where gamers might use VR to escape into characters and worlds imagined (a date with Kate Upton? You got it), Ford\u2019s engineers use the virtual world to shape the real one.<\/p>\n

I spoke with\u00a0guru Baron<\/a>\u00a0about immersion, Oculus, and the future of VR.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>Virtual reality is cutting edge in video gaming and auto design. How are they similar?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>When you are immersed in virtual reality, things respond the way you would expect in the real world. In gaming it\u2019s a level of abstraction because you control what you do, but navigate with a game controller. In our environment you are immersed the same \u2014 in an Oculus, for example \u2014 but the way you are navigating that environment is exactly like the physical world. You are the game controller. If you take three steps in our virtual world, you are taking three steps in the real world.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>Do you see Ford\u2019s technology applied to gaming?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>I would humbly say that there are some things gaming could do to improve simulator sickness. But the limiting factor is cost. The cost of our immersion lab is definitely higher than an Xbox 360 with an Oculus. Oculus is doing a really good thing by putting a rotational tracker in their device and (others are) making you use your body so you are the controller \u2014 which is very similar to what we have laid out.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>Who makes your system?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>We buy the hardware and integrate it into our systems around the world. We have a lab in Dearborn \u2014 soon to be two in Dearborn \u2014 and another in Australia and we have satellite centers in Germany, Mexico, Brazil, China, and India.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>How do you use the Immersion Lab?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>We create a virtual space so we are tracking you in a volume. The way we track you is with motion capture cameras that are set up around the room. And we track your eyes through the headset and then we present you with a stereoscopic view of the virtual world in real time at 30 frames a second.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>The Mustang was the first car developed with this tool?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>We\u2019ve been doing this since 2007, but the Mustang was the first with our new software.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>Why is a virtual Mustang better than building an actual Mustang prototype?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>We don\u2019t have enough money to build all the prototypes we need to cover all the variation in our vehicles. Because we can bring the manufacturing process back into the design we can change the look of the vehicle, we can change paint colors, we can change lighting … and do it all in an hour\u2019s time. It\u2019s incredibly efficient over building a prototype. An engineer can say: \u201cI want a new mirror.\u201d On a physical prototype you\u2019d have to go and order a new mirror and by the time you get the mirror other things have changed. Now you can make those changes instantly.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>Multi-player gaming is global with players interacting across oceans. How does Ford VR work between Australia and Dearborn?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>We do a lot of cross-continent design and engineering. So people might be working on an interior for the Chinese market and the same car for the American market. There\u2019s a right-hand drive Mustang there and left-hand here. We do reviews in the virtual space, all the regions are dialed in. If somebody in Australia is immersed with (me here), I can literally look at their head-mounted display floating in space so I know where they are on the car and they know where I am.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>In the gaming world, developers have made gloves that allow you to pick up virtual objects. Do you have similar tools where you feel haptic feedback opening a car door?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>We use passive haptic right now with virtual physical alignment. We also have gloves that track your hand and the articulation of your fingers. So you can put your hand around a steering wheel, for example, or touch all the components in an interior study.<\/p>\n

HP:\u00a0<\/b>How did you get here?<\/p>\n

Baron:\u00a0<\/b>I\u2019ve been with Ford for 26 years. My background is computer science \u2014 I\u2019ve always been an odd duck in a car company. I asked to be the virtual reality technical specialist. I had to earn my stripes … like a startup company inside a major manufacturer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Baron is a Ford Motor Co. specialist in virtual reality technology. (Ford) At San Francisco\u2019s\u00a0Game Developer\u2019s Conference in March, virtual reality stole the show with Facebook icing the cake\u00a0with its purchase of\u00a0virtual reality startup and goggles maker Oculus for a staggering $2 billion. But Silicon Valley has nothing over the Rust Belt. Meet\u00a0Elizabeth Baron, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14648,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14647\/revisions\/14648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}