VIAHOLO

SO FAR AWAY, YET SO CLOSE: THE HOLODECK IS REVOLUTIONIZING THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE

THE INNOVATOR: MIRO TAPHANEL, PASSIONATE ENGINEER AND PROBLEM­SOLVER

SPRIND AND VIAHOLO

WHY WE ARE COMMITTED

Because we are making augmented reality suitable for everyday life with the project. Because the technical approach is breaking through previous limitations. Because the potential is immeasurable.

WHAT WE DO

Creating a company from a research project. Providing brilliant innovators with the network and capital to transform their innovations into real-world solutions.

OPENING UP SPACES AND DEFINING GOALS

The innovators are defining the technical orientation, while SPRIND accompanies the project as a close partner, providing support for groundbreaking decisions.

THE POTENTIAL WE SEE

The revolution of the online meeting. Augmented reality as an industry of the future. AR glasses as a daily companion and platform technology.

THE HOLODECK ENABLES EVERYTHING THAT CHARACTERIZES COMPLEX HUMAN COMMUNICATION.

Miro Taphanel always wanted to be an engineer. It is engineers who create the products we surround ourselves with. They solve existential problems. He first studied mechanical engineering and then switched over to computer science, as he was especially excited by the even greater complexity it offered. You could say Miro Taphanel feels pretty comfortable in today’s technology and complexity society. He lives, researches and develops following the motto: “Everything you do not know is interesting.” There is also a private side to Taphanel. He likes to go sailing when time allows. Not leisurely, but with racing ambition. He lives “well in Karlsruhe,” as he said, with his wife, young son and daughter in a house they built themselves.

Dr. Miro Taphanel also runs his own company, Gixel, from Karlsruhe, Germany. Together with his co-founders Felix Nienstädt and Dr. Ding Luo , he is currently solving an enormous problem: the remote communication of the future. Felix Nienstädt, computer scientist and qualified engineer and architect, has wideranging experience in data processing and everything AI. He has established and maintained data warehouses, among other things. He uses his comprehensive programming knowledge to develop software that is extremely well-thought-out and maintenance-friendly. Ding Luo wrote his doctoral thesis in an extremely complex field: high-speed surface profilometry based on adaptive microscopy. He is an expert in the fields of optical measuring systems and computational imaging. His specialty is the rapid translation of theory into functional software.

The Holodeck Raises Remote Communication To A New Level

What is the ominous holodeck? It is a real room that a real person enters to “virtually” meet and communicate with one, two, three or 15 other real people—without all of them having to be in the same physical location. In the holodeck, you visually and audibly perceive other people and things very realistically. The way in which you are in contact feels “totally real,” not like a simple, overly tedious video conference.

The realistic and natural experience of this remote communication is the innovation, the killer application, as Miro Taphanel calls it. To create this natural vibe, the holodeck is fully packed with perfectly coordinated technology: highprecision localization and video technology. Not only this, but the person in the holodeck wears AR glasses fully developed by Gixel itself. The glasses have an extremely wide field of view, enabling them to create an immersive feeling of being close. They are also so small and lightweight that you can wear them like a normal pair of glasses while sitting and working at a keyboard, for example—the wearer can be productive in the here and now. “The whole holodeck system is held together with brilliant software,” Taphanel highlighted.

Basically, communication in the holodeck is as natural, human-friendly and multifaceted as it can be with remote communication. The human body is perceived in true scale, you have real eye contact and you can communicate non-verbally through facial expressions, gestures and body language and movement. What is very important to note is that you can be in contact with several people at the same time and sense and utilize the dynamic of groups. Miro Taphanel is certain that the holodeck enables everything that characterizes complex human communication. It raises remote communication to a new level, one that will change our society enormously. Physical location will lose significance when a “real feel” meeting is possible in the holodeck at any time. For internationally operating companies, this means, for example: Why should employees sit in a car or plane for hours, producing immense travel cost and climate damage, to participate in a meeting overtired? Instead, why not set up a holodeck, meet stressfree, communicate totally naturally and, last but not least, protect the climate? Are we really that far along? “Absolutely,” said Taphanel. “At Gixel, we already no longer have video conferences at this point. Now, we only meet in the holodeck.”

The prototype has already been created. Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger was also able to test it during her visit to SPRIND on March 14, 2022. To work intensively on the next step toward production readiness, SPRIND subsidiary VIAHOLO was founded in October 2021. With financial and technical support from the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, the holodeck is now set to climb the next important steps.