Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 29, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Virtual reality offers a completely new way to introduce innovative products to prospective customers and consumers. Alongside styling and design, a journey through a virtual product can communicate physical properties and additional knowledge. Immersive visualisation, in which viewers enter the data directly and interact with models, is not always suitable for product launches, particularly permanent presentations away from company sites or presentations to large audiences. Stereo 3D films offer an exciting and worthwhile alternative, communicating content impressively and durably with less effort and considerable opportunities for reuse.
After a successful first presentation to German and international journalists at Daimler TecDays in Leipzig the previous November, a stereo 3D live-action film and digital film of the new E-Class proved an ideal solution at Mercedes-Benz’s driving event in Madrid in March. Over four weeks, hundreds of journalists and visitors from around the world could explore the new model in detail and responded enthusiastically. Sales arguments for an exclusive product such as the E-Class can be communicated much more convincingly in three dimensions than through a conventional brochure.
Presenting a complex product realistically and compellingly in a stereo film requires broad expertise. VISENSO has partnered Daimler AG in simulation and virtual reality for more than ten years, with its solutions used in departments ranging from climate control to casting-tool construction. Close collaboration across product-development disciplines including design, engineering, calculation and simulation, and with product marketing, gave VISENSO the expertise to interpret technical data and complex CAE results correctly. Joint projects such as a digital film for the C-Class launch also taught its VR specialists the requirements for emotionally presenting the complete vehicle’s design and technical facts.
Driving dynamics, crash behaviour and aerodynamics were presented impressively to the specialist press before the first model left the production line. For the E-Class presentation, VISENSO handled the complete project, including editorial control, coordination and organisation. It selected perspectives, scenes and their arrangement, developed the 3D dramaturgy and coordinated film content with specialist departments. As a complete VR-solutions provider, VISENSO also selected and assembled technical components including production technology and stereo glasses. A special camera rig was used for filming.
Two cameras recorded images for the left and right eyes at a precisely defined spacing essential to the stereo effect. VISENSO Managing Director Dr Andreas Wierse explains: “The stereo live-action recordings of the E-Class are an absolute first. For the first time, the complete vehicle — including the interior — was filmed in stereo HD quality.” He adds: “During studio production, correctly setting the stereo parameters proved a genuine challenge.”
Alongside the live-action film, VISENSO created a film of the digital prototype showing physical properties through numerical simulations. For more than six months, the simulation, visualisation and VR specialist accompanied development in aerodynamics, crash, climate control and driving dynamics to record progress and results, using the COVISE VR software in particular.
Christoph Horn, Director Global Communications Mercedes-Benz Cars, says: “For the presentation of the new E-Class to specialist journalists, VISENSO comprehensively supported our use of 3D technology. Spatial presentation made both the emotional and technical aspects much more accessible and understandable than conventional two-dimensional presentations. VISENSO supported us throughout, from film production and choosing suitable technology to installation and on-site operation. Mercedes could focus on editorial content while VISENSO handled everything else.”
With Carl Zeiss’s new Cinemizer video glasses, interested viewers can now explore the vehicle’s form and function at home or while travelling and immerse themselves fully in the E-Class world. Coupled to VISENSO’s COVISE software, the 3D-capable glasses simulate a screen two metres away with a diagonal of 115 centimetres. The film can be downloaded to a common iPod from the E-Class Download Center on VISENSO’s website and viewed with the Cinemizer.
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