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Case Volvo Cars: Speeding up automotive design with Varjo's mixed reality

Have you heard of Varjo and Volvo’s revolutionary mixed reality test drive? In addition to evaluating active safety technologies with Varjo’s mixed reality, Volvo is using Varjo headsets for pioneering automotive design work.

We sat down with Volvo’s VP of Visual Art Design, Christian Braun, to reflect on the collaboration and discuss the key benefits Volvo has got from using Varjo’s mixed reality headsets.

Case Volvo – Results:

  • Test new designs before they’re built, replacing some of the costly clay modelling
  • Ensure better service quality – spot possible surface mistakes much earlier in the design process, saving time and adding efficiency
  • Review all details and materials – including the car body color and the foil – much earlier in the design process
  • Conduct pioneering user research across photorealistic immersive environments
Christian Braun, Volvo’s VP of Visual Art Design

Christian Braun on Varjo: “This is the future of creativity”

“At Volvo, we’re currently using Varjo for both exterior and interior design. When it comes to exterior design, I’ve never before seen a 3D car in this level of detail with this resolution.

With Varjo’s mixed reality and the human-eye resolution, you really see what you get. You can overlap new designs for the virtual model and change them instantly.

When you put on the headset, you get a fantastic sense of proportions of the car and can realistically review all the details and materials – including the body color and the foil early on in the design process. This is a huge advantage compared to using clay models.

Varjo’s mixed reality solution allows our designers to visualize their car models from the very beginning.

My vision is that designers are able to fully focus on design. Generate a new creative space by implementing advanced technologies – this is the future of creativity. Varjo’s mixed reality is a really big step towards realizing this dream.”

“For automotive interior design, Varjo is really the only headset you can use.”

“Before Varjo, it was not possible to design displays or dashboards inside immersive environments. This is the first time you can use virtual technologies for designing the interiors and even test-driving your designs on a real road. And with the new software features that Varjo recently introduced – including the visual markers technology – you can easily test new features such as virtual displays in the mixed reality environment.

Varjo has already improved Volvo’s design processes, as we have less clay modelling work to do. It’s revolutionary.

We’re also using Varjo to ensure service quality. With Varjo’s photorealistic mixed reality you can spot possible surface mistakes much earlier in the design process. This allows us to save time and add efficiency.

Now, we can really benefit from VR/XR in our design processes. We also look forward to improving the quality of our virtual collaboration with Varjo.”

Photorealistic virtual design reviews

Varjo enables designers to review photorealistic virtual objects in mixed reality using real-time lighting sources from the physical world. With Varjo, designers can:

  • See real-time updates of lighting conditions, viewing the model in different lighting conditions
  • Collaborate with others in the same room
  • See model details in human-eye resolution
  • Use their hands to interact with the virtual model
  • Jump from reality to virtual reality – and back
The world’s first XR test drive

“Varjo is the only device where you can no longer tell what’s real and what’s not.”

Casper Wickman - Technical Leader at Volvo Cars
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Read the full case study to learn how Volvo Cars and Varjo have created the world’s first mixed reality approach to evaluating prototypes, designs and active safety technologies

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Organizations

Business customers have access to our full product range.

Individuals

Private customers can order Aero through our webstore.