HP, NVIDIA, and Technicolor, Building Better Communities in Virtual Space

Today, when we think of Virtual Reality, we most often think of film and game based experiences. But VR is evolving to be so much more.

Beyond entertainment, VR is now being used to create alternate environments where professionals from varied industries are being challenged to think beyond their traditional boundaries. VR has moved from something of a novelty to shaping how businesses across multiple industries address their biggest challenges – which is impacting product and service planning for the next 10, 20, or even 50 years.

HP Mars Home Planet Project is an exciting example of the possibilities of VR beyond the world of entertainment. Spearheaded by HP, NVIDIA, and Technicolor, the project will create a VR experience of what life on Mars with 1 million habitants would look like. In the process, it seeks to challenge our thinking in adjacent markets such as architecture, civil engineering, and design – and as leaders in those fields and others join the project they can start to envision better and more sustainable communities for our future. Launched in August 2017, HP Mars Home Planet already has over 25,000 online community members and the numbers keep growing as interest in the unique project mounts.

According to Sean Young, HP’s worldwide segment manager for product development and AEC (architecture, engineering and construction), there are four planned stages: concept, modeling, rendering, and a culminating VR experience. HP was very selective in choosing its partners, selecting only those at the top of their respective fields. For VR, Young said, the choice was clear:

“In my opinion, nobody knows better than Technicolor how to bring these immersive worlds to life. That kind of knowledge and experience with the technology is going to be invaluable to adjacent markets. We now have massive companies in construction, civil engineering and architecture, and manufacturers in automotive, aerospace and defense, evolving into this new world of immersive visualization. This implies bringing in technologies and workflows and people that they don’t currently have in their environments and that’s where relationships with industry leaders like Technicolor come in.”

To date, more than 120 projects have already been submitted by Mars Project Community members to address housing, transportation, and agriculture on Mars. As submissions have only recently opened, more project ideas are sure to follow. The projects will be reviewed and judged by a panel with winners announced in November. Winners will have their designs featured in the VR experience, which launches in August 2018.