According to Japanese media reports, Psychic VR Lab, a well-known XR technology company from Japan, announced that it will make a major update to its VR/AR/MR (XR) creative platform STYLY, and users will be able to provide AR/MR content in real urban spaces in the future.
STYLY is a "metaverse" platform based on XR technology that allows creators to combine materials to create and publish XR content. As a low-barrier platform, it increases the number of parts that can be created without programming, reduces the production load, and allows people with little knowledge to create and publish XR content.
Since its release in August 2017, it has supported a large number of different VR/AR platforms, and recently added full support for Oculus Quest 2, as well as AR glasses Nreal Light and VR device VIVE Flow.
According to officials, this major update will allow users to import city data from six cities across the country on STYLY and use it to create AR/MR content, in particular. With this feature, when users visit the target city and use their smartphone or AR device, they will be able to play and experience the creator's AR/MR content in a designated location.
The six target cities are Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka. Urban data will be provided by the PLATEAU project of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and will be incorporated into STYLE, so creators will not need to collect and integrate urban data themselves. This will make it easier for creators to create virtual representations of their cities.
In the future, the company plans to increase the number of support cities in Japan, while incorporating data from major overseas cities to accelerate global development. Currently, XR only reflects terrain data, but in the future, it will be able to connect various data, such as people flow and traffic, aiming to become a platform for "XR to connect with cities". At the time of the update, it was only available for AR/MR use, but the company also revealed that it plans to support VR in the future.
This major update is scheduled for release in 2022.