Varjo Unveils ‘Teleport’ Service for Effortless Real-World to VR Scanning

Varjo, a renowned player in the high-end XR headset market, just unveiled an innovative 3D scanning service tailored for enterprise use, designed to simplify the creation of photorealistic environments. This service, which can be deployed using a smartphone, offers the flexibility to explore these environments in virtual reality as well as on regular screens.

The app, known as Teleport, is a subscription-based service that makes it incredibly easy to capture and recreate real-world settings. According to Varjo, the process is remarkably swift, taking between five to ten minutes, making it significantly quicker than the traditional photogrammetry techniques that we’re used to.

If you’re an Apple user, you’re in luck! Devices compatible with Teleport include iPhones and iPads running at least iOS 17. This encompasses a broad range of gadgets, right from the iPhone XR upwards, including Apple’s 8th generation iPad and newer models.

What’s exciting about these “digital twins” is their versatility. You can access them on your phone, PC, or dive into them using Varjo’s XR headsets as well as other popular PC VR headsets.

Teleport leverages cutting-edge technology, utilizing Gaussian Splatting and NVIDIA GPU-trained generative models. The 3D models are processed in the cloud initially but rendered on your device. This means you’ll only need to connect to the internet briefly to download these models; the actual exploration doesn’t require being online.

Teleport is available for a monthly fee of $30, and Varjo is enticing potential users with a seven-day free trial. This offer also grants access to a collection of captured environments, available in both standard and high-definition through its web viewer, with the top-tier quality exclusively on their desktop client.

This launch is perfectly timed with Varjo’s expansion of its Series D funding, welcoming investors like Beyond Capital, Nishikawa Communications, and NVIDIA into the fold. Although the exact figures weren’t disclosed, Varjo shared with Road to VR that this round elevates their total funding to around €180 million (or $188 million USD).

The influx of funds is set to turbocharge Varjo’s aim to boost use of its XR hardware and software in industrial settings. CEO Timo Toikkanen highlights the strategic focus on harnessing AI and machine learning to seamlessly blend real and virtual environments, significantly ramping up productivity and efficiency for their industrial clientele.

In a parallel development, Meta is on the path of creating a similar consumer-centric tool, announced back in September as Horizon Hyperscape. This is a demo experience meant to illustrate Meta’s cutting-edge vision for photorealism. Eventually, it will allow creators to “build worlds within Horizon by using a phone to scan a room and then recreate it,” though we’re still waiting for an official launch timeline.