Blogpost

Despite a slight slowdown in inflation, the manufacturing industry will face significant challenges in 2024. Products, raw materials and services have become more expensive at all levels of the supply chain. At the same time, these challenges offer opportunities to become more resilient in the marketplace and to leverage the potential of digital tools and technologies. High energy prices and rising labor costs are not only a burden, but also an opportunity for change.

Micro-optics are fundamental components in camera systems for smart devices, mobility applications, or medical products. We speak with Nils Fahrbach, CEO of Printoptix, and Frank Linsenmaier, CTO of Viewpointsystem, about the ambitious project “3DPrintoptixMarket“: Using a novel 3D printing process, high-end micro-optics are manufactured in a single step. Used in Viewpointsystem’s smart glasses, they should enable individual product customization.

Automation and digitalization are reshaping roles and professions in manufacturing. Entire workforces must adapt and learn new skills, such as operating or programming machines and robots, after previously performing manual tasks. There is also a growing need to make work processes more efficient and safer. This is where eye tracking comes in. Companies like Toyota and Denso have already successfully integrated this technology on the shop floor for various applications.

We demand more and more computing power from our devices, but conventional computing architectures are increasingly reaching their physical limits. In their search for new ways to continue scaling up processing, researchers and chip designers are taking inspiration from the way the brain processes information. This is also happening in the EU-funded research project “NimbleAI”: Viewpointsystem and 18 partners are developing a neuromorphic ‘super-chip’ that will be extremely powerful while consuming very little energy.

Get ready for an impressive device for training, education, and documentation – the VPS Lite Unit! With its compact size and lightweight yet robust design, it sets new standards in mobile eye tracking. It will be available from autumn 2023, offering the wearer unique wearing comfort and unrestricted freedom of movement.

For most users our VPS 19 glasses work out of the box without any calibration, providing an auto-calibrated gaze accuracy that is good enough for many applications. For situations that require a personalized calibration, we provide a simple one-point calibration procedure that estimates personalized κ angles for each eyeball and improves the typical gaze accuracy to below 1°.

Soldiers, special forces, police officers – anyone in the field – often have only fractions of a second to make decisions. With the help of advanced mobile eye tracking, operational forces can train their attention and enhance perception. Nils Berger, Founder & CEO of Viewpointsystem, explains how the technology leads to a better understanding of human perception, as well as increased efficiency and security during operations.

Imagine it’s the middle of the week, actually a normal working day, but instead of daily business it says “Inspire Day” on your calendar. Once a month at Viewpointsystem it is exactly like that. Then it’s time for “business as unusual”.

The metaverse is one of the big buzzwords these days and not much more than a vision today. Many companies are committed to shaping the metaverse. And so are we. This is because eye tracking and, in particular, our Digital Iris technology offer the possibility of emulating authentic human gaze behavior on avatars. We talked to Alejandro Gloriani, R&D Senior Developer in the Advanced Technology Team at Viewpointsystem, about this.

Easy and uncomplicated operation is crucial for smart glasses to be accepted by employees and to survive successfully in the company. For this reason, we are constantly working on making our smart glasses even more easy and intuitive to use. Today, we would like to introduce four features that make the VPS 19 better optimized for real-world use.