vive focus 3
VR Simulation Allows Police To Train Using Real Tasers
VR technology and wrist trackers combine to offer a next-level training program.
Axon, a weapons technology company based out of Arizona, today launched a new VR simulation designed to train law enforcement officers in de-escalation tactics by immersing them in realistic scenarios they may face out in the field. Not only that, but trainees can actually bring their TASER energy weapons and training firearms with them in VR.
Axon’s simulator training is powered by the Vive Focus 3, HTC’s all-in-one VR headset in combination with the company’s Vive Wrist Trackers, which track the position of the user’s hands in VR. 1:1 replicas of these devices are recreated in VR to provide officers with the most realistic experience possible. Users can even hold Axon’s TASER 7 with two hands without the headset losing track thanks to the aforementioned wrist sensors.
“Axon’s VR Simulator Training works together with VIVE Wrist Tracker to bring safer law enforcement one step closer to reality,” said Dan O’Brien, GM Americas at HTC Vive in an official release. “Officers can now use the exact same objects in VR training sessions that they would out in the field. This makes VR training more natural, and ultimately more effective. We’re proud to be working together with Axon to help protect officers and civilians alike with effective VR training solutions.”
The platform is composed of three primary components (as provided by Axon):
- Axon Academy
- Axon Academy houses a library of supplemental e-learning content and training materials designed to strengthen the skills learned in the Community Engagement and Simulator Training scenarios. For trainers, after-action reports stored on Academy provide performance and progress metrics, insight into an officer’s decisions, and new opportunities for coaching and program development.
- Community Engagement Training
- Community Engagement Training focuses on developing skills, empathy, and communication for engaging with individuals in scenarios involving mental health, trauma, peer intervention, and more. Through these experiences, trainees get to understand the perspectives of both the officer and the civilian and see how different modes of communication can result in de-escalation, which can influence calls for service.
- Simulator Training
- Firing Range – Basic: In this scenario, trainees learn safe and effective deployment of weapons. Trainees learn to operate TASER 7 energy weapons and replica training firearms in VR within an indoor range environment, then practice their skills on stationary targets from varying distances to improve accuracy, speed, tactical knowledge, and critical thinking skills.
- Firing Range – Intermediate: In this scenario, trainees deploy the TASER 7 energy weapon from various distances on moving subjects in an outdoor, nighttime setting. This fast-paced exercise helps trainees utilize safety features, recognize proper spread and probe placement on moving subjects, manage clothing disconnects, and achieve higher effectiveness when deploying TASER cartridges.
“We’re thrilled to be HTC’s exclusive partner for incorporating the VIVE Wrist Tracker into Axon’s latest training platform,” added Chris Chin, Axon VP of Immersive Technologies. “Accurate hand tracking is essential to training true-to-life and increasing learning retention, which carries over into the field and ultimately helps make our training more effective.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen VR technology used by law enforcement for training purposes. In 2020 we talked about how the Strasburg Police Department in Strasburg, Virginia was using VR technology for crisis de-escalation training. The supplemental training allowed officers the unique opportunity to experience confrontation from the perspective of a civilian.
Axon’s VR simulation training is already being used by the Phoenix Police Department. The company hopes that its technology can provide effective training solutions to law enforcement agencies while reducing the overall cost. Not only that but the platform can be used anywhere at any time and even conducted remotely between trainees and their instructors.
For more information on Axon’s VR simulation training visit here.
Image Credit: Axon
VR Attraction Zero Latency Ditches Backpack PCs in Favor of Vive Focus 3 & Wireless Rendering
Zero Latency, one of the longest running VR attractions in the out-of-home VR space, is dropping the backpack PCs that were once the backbone of the platform. Now the company says it’s moving to standalone Vive Focus 3 headsets with wireless delivery of PC-rendered VR content.
Unlike a VR arcade, which lets customers play consumer VR content, Zero Latency is a VR attraction offering totally unique multi-user VR experiences designed to be played in a large, shared arena.
The company, which offers up its platform and experiences to franchisees, has steadily upgraded its VR tech as the space has developed.
Early on the system relied on a custom backpack PC paired with OSVR HDK 2 headsets and an optical overhead tracking system. Eventually the company moved to purpose-built VR backpacks and first-gen WMR headsets from HP, which allowed it to streamline the system considerably by dropping the overhead tracking in favor of WMR’s inside-out tracking. Later versions of the system moved to the more modern HP Reverb headset.
Now Zero Latency has announced its latest upgrade to the system, which further streamlines the setup by opting for the standalone Vive Focus 3 and streaming PC-rendered content wirelessly to the headsets. The company says it’s streaming over a local Wi-Fi 6E network which purportedly offers lower latency than prior Wi-Fi revisions.
That means dropping the VR backpacks entirely, which not only reduces the cost of the system, but significantly reduces complexity for both operators and users; operators don’t need to clean, charge, and maintain the backpack units, and it’s one less step during onboarding which means more playtime for users.
And while other standalone headsets like Quest 2 might have been an option, HTC’s Vive Focus 3 has a couple of unique advantages for out-of-home use. Especially its swappable battery which reduces the number of headsets needed on hand as the batteries can be charged independently and swapped on the fly.
On the content side, Zero Latency locations continue to offer the same experiences as before, which span cooperative and competitive multiplayer experiences with up to eight simultaneous players. Though, given the company’s knack for innovation in their in-house content, it’ll be interesting to see if the move to a more simplified system will unlock potential for experiences that wouldn’t quite work with the bulkier setup.
Given today’s announcement, it’ll likely be some time yet before the upgrade rolls out to existing Zero Latency locations, but it seems the company will be offering this upgraded version of the system to new franchisees going forward.
HTC Brings OpenXR Public Beta to Vive Focus 3
HTC announced this week it is making available an OpenXR public beta for the Vive Focus 3. OpenXR is designed to make it easier for developers to create a single app that’s cross-compatible with multiple OpenXR-supporting headsets.
OpenXR is a royalty-free standard that aims to standardize the development of XR applications, making hardware and software more interoperable. In the best case scenario, an app built to be compliant with OpenXR can run on any OpenXR-supporting headset with no changes to its underlying code.
OpenXR has seen a slow but steady adoption since reaching version ‘1.0’ in 2019, and picked up significant steam in 2021 with official support on SteamVR, Meta going “all in” on OpenXR, “production-ready” OpenXR support in Unreal Engine, and more.
And now HTC’s latest enterprise-focused standalone headset, Vive Focus 3, has moved significantly closer to the finish line. The company announced this week that it’s ready for developers to test out the headset’s OpenXR support through a public beta.
“We’re committed to enabling the developer community to build the content and applications that power experiences across the spectrum of reality,” said Dario Laverde, Director of Developer Relations at HTC Vive. “With OpenXR, more developers will be able to bring their content to Vive Focus 3, and users will benefit from an expanded app library and more flexibility in terms of how they consume content. We strongly believe it’s a win for the XR industry as a whole.”
Now that doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to buy Quest applications and run them on Vive Focus 3… but it does mean that developers should have a much easier time porting their apps to run on Vive Focus 3, if they choose to offer their apps on the headset.
Developers interested in using OpenXR on Vive Focus 3 can find instructions for joining the public beta and using the standard in Unity at HTC’s developer forum.