Real-time 3D Content for Training and Collaboration Becoming Ubiquitous at I/ITSEC 2023

This blog was contributed by John A. Cunningham , CEO of Spatial Synergy , a consulting services company specializing in spatial computing and artificial intelligence technologies whose mission is to assistant Enterprise and Government organizations looking to accelerate adoption of these technologies by providing experts who have decades of business and technology experience with the world’s leading software, hardware, and systems integration companies. Campfire is a client of Spatial Synergy.

The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) is the annual event that the defense modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) industry anxiously awaits to see what innovative technologies are being made available to improve training of our nation and our allies' forces. Every year the latest innovations are proudly displayed by companies and government agencies to seek validation that their technologies and solutions are viable in this highly competitive space. Many leading technologies displayed at I/ITSEC have become standard applications in Defense and the commercial industry. In addition, many companies consider I/ITSEC their biggest “customer sales event” of the year. One of the training companies I previously worked with attributed nearly 70% of our annual training product sales to I/ITSEC.?

This year the highlight of I/ITSEC for me was the validation that real-time 3D (RT3D) has nearly become a ubiquitous technology for training, simulation, and collaboration. I remember walking around the show floor in November 2019 right before Covid changed the world and seeing the new RT3D & XR (Extended Reality) technologies on display by their manufacturers, many had RT3D content displayed on 2D surfaces but only a handful of training and simulation companies where showing solutions that incorporated RT3D on head mounted displays (HMDs), now also being referred to as Spatial Computing (thank you Apple for adding yet another marketing term).??

During the first post-COVID I/ITSEC event in 2021 I noticed that most of the small and innovative training companies had RT3D and XR on display and a few of the large established MS&T companies were displaying the technology. Most of the large companies had merely invited small companies who had developed solutions to display in their booths to give the appearance they had their own XR solutions. When I asked leaders of large SIs and OEMs why they had not made investments in their own solutions, the answer was mostly that the technology had not proven itself yet. As a C-suite leader myself, I interpret that to mean that the technology experts in these big companies could not figure out how to sell it internally to the business line owners.?

This year I saw every large, mid, and small MS&T company displaying RT3D & XR technology as part of their training solution offering. Every training provider (and agency) leader that I spoke to confirmed that 3D was now becoming mainstream, and they “needed” to have RT3D enabled solutions or would be left behind. When I asked “why” spatial computing and RT3D was becoming mainstream, here are the most widely shared opinions:?

1. XR HMD technology has advanced significantly where it is now “usable” in many jobs and use cases, and there are proven ROI models and outcomes (e.g., Varjo, Magic Leap, HTC, Meta, Xtal)?
2. The development tools have become more mature and easier to use and making it less expensive and faster to develop XR friendly real-time 3D content (e.g., Unity & Unreal)??
3. The industry is moving towards some standards such as OpenXR & Universal Scene Description (USD), which makes it possible for developers to integrate hardware and software faster. See my interview with Daniel Meeks as an example. ?

My assessment after many conversations (and debates) with industry experts (who are not at all shy about sharing their opinions!) is that there is a consensus that we have “nearly reached” the tipping point for ubiquitous adoption of spatial computing in the Defense MS&T space, however there is still a lot of room for broader adoption. Most felt that spatial computing & XR will be ubiquitous at I/ITSEC 2024!??

MBSE making a guest appearance at I/ITSEC?

Model Based Systems Engineering better known by the acronym “MBSE” is becoming more important in the development of physical things like aircraft, vehicles, ships, etc. And MBSE is becoming a requirement for many OEMs and solution providers who want to work in the US Defense ecosystem. There were a few companies that were displaying how they could support MBSE initiatives, but you really had to ask about their plans. To be fair I/ITSEC is a training and simulation show but I wonder if MBSE and RT3D will be a hot topic at the Defense Manufacturing Conference in Nashville Dec 11-14. ?

In a 2020 article, Nataliya Shevchenko (Carnegie Mellon University) explains “Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is a formalized methodology that is used to support the requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation associated with the development of complex systems. In contrast to document-centric engineering, MBSE puts models at the center of system design. The increased adoption of digital-modeling environments during the past few years has led to increased adoption of MBSE.”? Here is the complete article which is a great explanation of MBSE: https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/blog/introduction-model-based-systems-engineering-mbse/ ?

The Connection between MS&T and MBSE?

The connection to these two terms is the first word in each of the acronyms which is “model.”? Both MS&T and MBSE require that models be used in the development of the underlying products and solutions. And in the digital world that can mean digital 3D models to complement the real things (often called digital twins).??

For the traditional defense industrial base this is a huge change in the way that product design & review process is done, which today is primarily document driven. So many MBSE experts are looking to the MS&T industry for tools and technologies that can help them accelerate initiatives to get their internal teams and their customers on the same digital page.?

One of the critical elements of MBSE is collaboration between internal and external (customer or supplier) teams. The idea is to bring teams together around the physical product or the digital model to exchange ideas, troubleshoot and make modifications. So how is that currently done with dispersed and virtual teams? The most common answer from the people that I spoke with is “Zoom” or “MS Teams.”? The teams get together on these platforms to meet, discuss, and collaborate. Often using physical documents on a share drive as their resources. While this seems to work, all agree there must be a better way that is integrated into the MBSE process. This is where spatial computing and 3D collaboration tools can immediately enable organizations internally and with their partners and customers.??

Let’s all get around the Campfire and collaborate in 3D!?

Making their first appearance on the I/ITSEC exhibition floor this year was Campfire . This California-based software company was founded in 2019 by XR industry pioneers who had previously developed the world’s most widely adopted Industrial Augmented Reality (AR) platform called Vuforia. Their mission... to create a product that did something intuitive, easy to use and was needed by customers (a winning formula in my opinion). They wanted to enable teams to collaborate in 3D using platforms that they were already familiar with such as desktop & tablets as well as new head mounted XR technologies. The best explanation of what Campfire is in layman’s terms that resonated with me was from Campfire CEO Jay Wright who said “think of it as PowerPoint meets Google Docs. Campfire enables teams to upload nearly any 3D model using a mobile phone, commercial scanning devices or importing existing CAD or other digital models on to the platform to enable them to get collaborating in minutes using a familiar and intuitive user interface”.? ??

To many of the industry experts I interviewed, this value proposition offered is very compelling. However, I needed to see it in action for myself as I have lots of experience with technologies that had big promises but failed to deliver. I challenged Jay to conduct a real time demo on the show floor that I would record to show how the “scan to collaborate” process works (or not!). We decided to create a model of a Marine Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) Driver trainer platform developed by 302 Interactive and Talon Simulations and went to their booth while our team remained in the Campfire booth.? ?

Using an iPhone with the Polycam application, Jay took images of the physical simulator and uploaded those scans directly to Campfire’s cloud platform. We then went back to Campfire’s booth and watched as the team logged in to their Campfire accounts and started collaborating on the model from an iPad, a laptop and on Quest 3 mixed reality device within minutes. Jay also scanned a medical training mannequin at another booth just to further validate the capability and to have something interesting to show the medical training folks (who are not that interested in driver training simulators).?

You can view the video of that demo here .

It worked exactly as Jay said and I witnessed many additional demonstrations that convinced me they have a solid product. However, what was more important to Jay is what potential customers thought of Campfire, which is one of their main reasons for exhibiting at I/ITSEC.?

Going from the Design/Review use case to Training?

One of the use cases that is immediately evident for Campfire is for product Design Review. But what about skills training? While everyone wants to have real-time 3D immersive training content, that takes a lot of time and investment to build. Campfire can easily enable traditional curriculum to be delivered remotely without the need to redevelop curriculum. Instructors can upload assets from their curriculum (or even from the real world) to use in delivery of their curriculum. For example, an instructor of medical devices can use their iPhone to scan a medical device, upload it onto Campfire, give students access to the platform, get everyone on the platform and then use the model as supporting training aid and have everyone looking at the model from various perspectives and be able to annotate, take notes and even export data. ?They can also even use their MS Teams or Zoom tools at the same time. They can take any current curriculum, enable collaboration, and get better student engagement without modifying the curriculum.?

One of the other exciting training use cases is product training. I recently worked with a medical equipment company who needed to train customers on how to use their new product in a very remote part of the world. Because the equipment was complicated, they needed to send teams of instructors to that country to do in-person training. With Campfire they could have delivered that training instantly remotely.?

I want to be clear, while I believe that Campfire is an extremely powerful platform, it is not designed to be a learning management system or replace interactive immersive training content. It is a collaboration tool that does its job very well.?

Congratulations to the Campfire team for creating a useful product that does what they say it should! And thank you for investing your company time and resources to find out how Campfire can better support the Defense MS&T industry. Our industry needs proven commercial off-the-shelf tools that are cost-effective and can be scaled to help with training and product development workflows. ?

User Feedback and meeting Government Security Requirements??

What was clearly obvious was that the reactions from potential users in both the MBSE and MS&T space and from government, industry and academia were all consistent. Everyone I spoke with that had the chance to experience a demonstration confirmed that the Campfire platform would be a highly valuable tool for their organization. The user interface is intuitive and easy to use, is cloud-based and works on traditional devices and headsets. Everyone also confirmed that there is a tremendous need to be able to collaborate on 3D models and enable existing training curriculum to be more immersive. There are many homegrown solutions across the industry that have been developed by labs and internal teams at many of the companies to get 3D models into some type of application for collaboration, however they are mostly “projects” and not true COTS products with well thought out design and features. Campfire has been purpose built to meet the needs of end users and to scale without the need for software developer support (we can all use PowerPoint today without the need for a tech support engineer by our side). From its intuitive UI design to the workflow and tools within the application, Campfire has been designed for ease of use for designers, engineers, instructors, and end users. ?

While user feedback is strong, it’s only usable if it can be deployed in secure environments. Campfire has spent more than two years collaborating with one the largest defense OEMs on a hybrid cloud architecture that supports CUI data. While there are varying requirements for government clouds, this is a solid foundation and shows their commitment to security and the MS&T industry.

Conclusion?

What is clear to me is that real-time 3D is now the standard for MS&T and MBSE. And I believe that we have “nearly” reached the “Tipping Point” for XR and spatial computing in the Defense MS&T industry but are not at the apex of the hill just yet, hence why I say it has “nearly” reached the tipping point. Technology continues to prove itself both in capabilities and results, the tools are getting better, and standards are starting to help make integration easier. About every training and simulation company displayed their XR enabled solutions in their booth, which is a key indicator.?

Get started with Campfire today , or connect with the team for a demo.

Coming Up

Now on to the next defense event. The team will be “camping out” at the Space Association (SFA) Force Space Power conference in Orlando Dec 12-13 to demonstrate how Campfire can be a tool to help accelerate the United States Space Force product development and training initiatives. The Space Force claims that it is the first digital service. How well are they leveraging digital 3D technology for training and product development? Campfire will have a booth at the Space Power conference so DM me if you want a demonstration.??