Last year, when many metaversic "nonsense" projects flew all over the sky, NVIDIA has demonstrated the significance of the existence of the metaverse at the 2021 autumn GTC conference, and the Omniverse platform has become a connector to the physical-level 3D virtual world, so that the virtual is no longer a dream of Nanke, but can have the ability to empower the real world.
At the Spring 2022 GTC Conference, which just ended this year, Nvidia announced a number of updates to the Omniverse platform, so that developers, decision makers, and even the general consumer can benefit, more efficient development, more powerful tools, more convenient demos, and better experiences, which are accelerating the transformation of the metaverse virtual world into productivity, improving work efficiency, and improving the quality of life.
A new weapon for constructing a virtual world
Imagine how today's highly developed real world is constructed step by step, the stone tools of primitive society undoubtedly play a groundbreaking role, and the construction of a detailed virtual world with digital twin characteristics is no different from the sharp weapon that needs to be taken advantage of.
Looking at the current digital field, graphics performance has undoubtedly been equated with productivity, because the market demand for GPUs is becoming more and more intense, for professionals, GPUs can provide them with support in efficient visual computing, artificial intelligence acceleration and other aspects. The new NVIDIA RTX A500, RTX A1000, RTX A2000 8GB, RTX A3000 12GB, RTX A4500, and RTX A5500 laptop GPUs provide more ways to acquire AI and ray tracing technology, so developers can create immersive digital experiences with their notebooks at any time.
In order to cope with the huge amount of digital twins, NVIDIA OVX was also released during the 2021 Autumn GTC Conference, and Shi Chengqiu, senior technical marketing manager of NVIDIA China, said: "This is the most important release of GTC this year, OVX is omniverse Accelerator, and it is also a professional-level digital twin platform created by GTC for the simulation of large-scale complex applications in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence and industrial automation. "The system combines high-performance GPU-accelerated computing, graphics processing and AI, and is equipped with high-speed storage access, low-latency networking, precise timing, the performance needed to create realistic digital twins, and the ability to achieve accurate 1:1 real-time synchronization in the real and virtual worlds, so that businesses and organizations can build models of buildings, factories, cities, and even the entire world, so that complex systems can be evaluated and tested in the same time and space, and the interactive processes of multiple autonomous systems can be iteratively iterated. Finally, it is deployed to the real world through optimization.
Nvidia has yet to make hardware technology a gulf that prevents the industry from constructing a virtual world metacosm. "Even if you don't have a high-end GeForce or RTX system, or if you're a personal studio, individual designer, personal contractor, or Controller, you can use all the features by simply subscribing to Omniverse Cloud without a professional IT infrastructure and team. Shi Chengqiu specifically introduced the Omniverse Cloud released during the conference to the media. The service includes Nucleus Cloud, Omniverse Create and View, virtual world builders can edit large scenes through the device anytime and anywhere through the Nucleus Cloud, and can use Omniverse Create to work together in real time at the same time, and finally can also complete a complete simulation rendering function through view push streaming, allowing non-technical users or decision makers. The reviewer looks at the Omniverse scene.
Full-ring virtual world platform
When the weapon in hand is in hand, is it safe to construct a new world? In fact, it also needs the assistance of excellent construction technology. Just like in primitive society, stone tools were very important, and the subsequent invention of rammed earth technology could not be ignored, and finally began to build its own home.
Rammed earth technology is like a software tool to the virtual world, and NVIDIA has also brought a lot of updates to the Omniverse platform. The new Create version 2022.1 includes USD support for NURBS surfaces (the type of surface modeling for objects such as hair, particles, etc.), and the new ActionGraph feature unlocks keyboard shortcuts and user interface buttons while triggering complex events.
The Omniverse Machinima 2022.1 beta provides artists with a range of tools to resynthetic, recreate, and redefine the animated narrative of video games through immersive visualizations, collaborative design, and photorealistic rendering. With the integration of NVIDIA Maxine's human posture estimation function, users can track and capture body movements in real time using a single camera, and convert 2D camera footage into 3D models in real time without the need for a MoCap kit.
In addition, the Omniverse Replicator framework appeared after the update, which can help developers quickly generate the scenes they need in the virtual world environment, and can globally call different materials, modeling and digital assets, so that the 3D composite data has the same physical properties as in the real world, thereby helping to complete AI-based artificial intelligence training, which is convenient for virtual empowerment of reality.
Nvidia is also updating to provide non-technical personnel with a gateway to a virtual world "construction site" that can be easily experienced. The updated version of Omniverse View in omniverse Cloud mentioned above will be for reviewers, party personnel or decision makers can use God mode or God perspective to view the progress of all projects, through the interactive viewer, reviewers can comment and mark up, convenient for real-time feedback to inform front-end designers; the new Omniverse XR beta can be called an enhanced version of View. Enables users to experience full-fidelity 3D scenes in a one-to-one ratio.
At this point, it is not difficult to find that NVIDIA has built a full-ring virtual world platform from creation to operation to deployment. This allows industry developers to build a digital twin virtual world with great real-world value through Omniverse, such as verifying the reliability and safety of real-world projects through virtual worlds, or helping to design factories or robots, using artificial intelligence to plan the entire factory, and rationalizing the placement of materials and machinery.
Metacosm becomes productive
More importantly, many companies around the world are turning the metacosm into productivity through this full-ring virtual world platform.
KPF Architects is working through Omniverse Cloud, where team designs can collaborate on visual and 3D design work in Omniverse from any device, anywhere.
Deutsche Bahn has used Omniverse to build a digital twin in the "German Digital Railways" program, replicating Germany's high-speed rail network 1:1. The use of digital twins to train the automatic operation system of high-speed trains, as well as AI enhancement and predictive analysis of unexpected situations in the middle of railway operation, help DB develop a more accurate perception system to detect and respond to accidents in a more optimized way.
Amazon is also using omniverse to enable digital twins to help solve the problem of warehousing, distribution, and smart factory training and deployment of virtualized high-tech artificial intelligence in the future. Faced with more than 200 robots, processing millions of packages per day and operating more than 500,000 steps per day, the company used Omniverse Enterprise and Isaac Sim to develop a set of AI-level digital twins to optimize warehouse design and processes, greatly improving the training efficiency of robots.
For individuals, the online communication experience will also be changed by Omniverse Avatar, just like the "virtual and real" Old Huang at the press conference, everyone in the process of online communication, can also become always focused on the camera for communication, or blurt out the Chinese, that is, the real user, but in a certain moment of a local detail display, it can be said that there is a virtual technical blessing.
While some people are still thinking about reselling parking spaces or flipping houses in the metaverse, NVIDIA Omniverse is undoubtedly building this new continent on the ground, just like the species exchange between the new world and the old world, the digital twin virtual world is also producing a significant data exchange with reality, and both worlds will be more imaginative.