“Harnessing the power of 5G to offer more inclusive and comfortable extended reality (XR) experiences, using graphical computing power transmitted over networks.”
On January 12, 2022, at La Défense in Paris, Orange and Amaclio Productions unveiled Éternelle Notre-Dame, an immersive VR tour of the cathedral, which takes you on a trip through time from its construction in the Middle Ages all the way to the present day. Designed by Emissive, a company that specializes in 3D cultural tours and VR games, this 45-minute experience gives you the chance to dive into the history of this iconic Parisian landmark. Visitors can walk around in a 360° virtual environment, with their friends beside them appearing as avatars.
Harnessing the Power of 5G for VR
This Location-Based Entertainment (LBE) technology still has room for improvement. It relies on a Wi-Fi connection, meaning that the user has to wear a VR headset as well as a backpack containing a laptop, with both connected by a USB cable. This brings the user back to reality, and comfort and freedom of movement are restricted. However, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022, Orange Innovation’s teams used a Proof of Concept (PoC) to demonstrate that new mobile networks can help to remove these barriers. “We’ve decided to capitalize on our progress and work on improving 5G’s capabilities, so that we can offer more inclusive XR experiences,” says Khalid Oulahal, Project Manager for 5G and XR Services. “The aim is to move the computing power over to networks so that users can ditch the backpack and enjoy the experience with an entry-level headset, without losing any of the quality. This way, the best XR experiences can be streamed directly over the network, all thanks to Cloud XR. Using Cloud XR in this way could be hugely beneficial and applied to many different use cases, most significantly premium VR games, LBE services and augmented technicians for Industry 4.0 solutions.”
Computer Processing in the Cloud
5G not only saves us from cumbersome hardware; it also improves the equipment’s raw performance. To be visually comfortable and spare users from the infamous motion sickness, VR experiences need very high refresh and frame rates, which new mobile networks have the means to support when it comes to latency and bandwidth.
In terms of Cloud XR, this means “moving computing capacity onto the Cloud,” as Maxime Jouin, an XR Software Architect & Developer at Orange Innovation, explains. “The principle is similar to a remote office, where you can use a computer remotely, but instead this is applied to a VR headset. This means that the virtual experience is no longer powered through the headset or backpack, but by a remote computer. This computer calculates the frame rate being transmitted to it and converts it into a video feed, which is streamed live over 5G to the headset, where it is then played back. While this is happening, the headset tracks the user’s position and sends it to the remote computer, which recomputes the images. This process is then continuously repeated.”
Race to the Best Latency
Thanks to Cloud XR , users can invest in ultra-sophisticated hardware similar to gaming computers. Equipped with next-generation graphics cards, this kind of equipment offers very high-definition visuals and can support advanced optical effects like ray tracing (a technique that simulates how light behaves in the real world to generate digital images).
The solution on display at MWC shows how valuable 5G can be to VR experiences. It will be made available to the public in 2022 as part of the Éternelle Notre Dame virtual tour. Its potential could be even further unlocked in the future, especially in terms of latency, which is critical for users’ visual comfort. The PoC developed at Orange’s 5G Lab in Rennes has achieved a latency rate of 30 ms on a non-Standalone 5G network. By transitioning to Standalone 5G, it should be possible to increase this by 5 ms. And so the latency race begins.
