VR in enterprise sectors can be more exciting than gaming: Vinay Narayan

Some of the most amazing experiences in virtual reality (VR) are not in gaming but in enterprise sectors – architecture, construction, engineering and education being the most profound ones – says Vinay Narayan, executive director and head of VR product management at HTC Vive. “SmartVizX is revolutionising the VR space in India by delivering big on non-gaming VR solutions in the enterprise space,” Narayan, also a member of the SmartVizX board, tells Khalid Anzar in an interview.

Edited excerpts:

When we talk about VR, most of us assume it is only about gaming. How else is VR used, especially in businesses across sectors?

Some of the most amazing and profound experiences in VR are not in gaming but in enterprise sectors. Architecture, construction, engineering and education are some sectors where VR is the most profound. Most technologies like VR give you access to experiences and tools that previously didn’t exist.

For example, those using VR tools in education not only learn deeper but also learn longer. VR allows you to recreate scenarios while keeping in view the difficulties faced by participants. These recreated scenarios help minimise distractions and recreate an ideal environment to deliver a better learning experience.

What is SmartVizX doing in this space? Do we have a lot of people harnessing the power of VR in India?

The SmartVizX team is the pioneer in India’s non-gaming VR content space. They realised there was a deep problem in architectural design – it was not intuitive for architects and explaining Proof of Concept (PoC) was time-consuming. When VR came about, SmartVizX created a team and looked at the biggest challenges in implementing VR for architecture, construction and engineering spaces, and also assessed the ability of VR to design and collaborate.

A big room, for instance, might have different meanings for different individuals. But in VR, big is the same as can be experienced. So, that was a great design and collaboration tool.

Not only in architecture, SmartVizX is also designing different training scenarios in VR and non-VR. The team is building and delivering solutions for everything from augmented reality to virtual reality.

How do you think will VR revolutionise India’s manufacturing sector in the coming months?

If we talk about design, earlier design concepts took a long time before they were turned into a final product. Once you build something, to change the processes and the assembly line is very expensive.

Now, we can do that in a PoC mode and globally. So, now if you have stakeholders across the globe, they do not have to actually fly here to look at the PoC; they can look at that in a virtual environment and also make changes real-time in a virtual environment.

And, if you are introducing a new manufacturing line or new processes, training employees to complete the job functions has now become a lot easier and a lot more accessible and immersive.

When is HTC Vive coming to India?

In the first half of this year.