Spatial Computing Definition: What Does It Actually Mean?

The Apple Vision Pro’s launch this week took over the headlines; with it, the phrase “spatial computing” was used in almost every article and news story. But most in the business world don’t know how to define it.?

Here’s a way to understand spatial computing: what it is, what it isn’t, and what its components are.

What Spatial Computing Is Not

Spatial Computing is not one single technology or one single device. It is not just virtual reality either. Time and again, we see professionals say that spatial computing is a “flavor” or mixed reality or that it is another word for the metaverse.?

It is not.?

When we speak of spatial computing, we are talking about the next wave of computing, which comes after personal computing and mobile computing. We are talking about a set of tools and a new technology field. Boiling it down to one single technology would be like boiling down mobile computing to one single technology. Doing so would be reductive.?

What Is Spatial Computing

Spatial computing is an evolving 3D-centric form of computing that, at its core, applies AI, Computer Vision, and XR and a wave of technologies to blend virtual experiences into a user’s experience of the physical world.? It’s a new field of technology that combines new advances in software, hardware, data/information & connectivity. It enables humans to interact & communicate in new ways with each other & with machines/tech, as well as gives machines/tech the capabilities to navigate & understand our physical environment in new ways. From a business perspective, it will expand computing into everything you can see, touch, and know.?

It is a new, evolving field of computing that requires a new set of tools and components to reach its full potential.?

In this past Forbes article , I dove deeper into its definition, but for the purpose of this article, I’m keeping the definition brief and simplified.?

Expanding Computing Beyond Mobile

Let’s take a step back and examine how the term mobile computing has been defined in the past. The term is often used to “refer to a group of IT tools, services, and operational methods that allow users to access computing, data, and related resources and capabilities while on the go.” We are still in the mobile computing phase slowly entering a new phase. In the mobile computing phase of mobile human-computer interaction, “a computer is expected to be carried around while being used, allowing for data, speech, and video transmission. Mobile hardware, mobile software, and mobile communication are all components of mobile computing.”??

While in a 2010 paper on connecting smart objects , mobile computing is definied as the field of wireless communication and carry-around computers.?

So, looking at this way of understanding new computing platforms, how can one start to expand our comprehension of what spatial computing is??

Spatial computing is an expansion and evolution of computing. It’s an emerging field and the realm where we’ll see future computing advances. This moment we arrive in today is in part thanks to the convergence of AI, computer vision, extended reality, etc., allowing humans to use technology in entirely different ways.?

As an evolving field of 3D-centric communications, spatial computing includes new hardware, new interfaces, new software, and new forms of connectivity. It, just like mobile computing, comprises a group of tools, services, hardware, and operational systems that allow users to access computing, data, and related resources and capabilities in a new way.?

The significant change here is that spatial computing expands computing beyond just mobile devices, making almost any flat surface an interface with software. It also ushers in a new way for humans to communicate with other humans, and in a evolutionary way will allow computers, robots, cars, devices, holograms, etc., to understand and navigate the physical world alongside us in new ways, in ways technology has not been able to do before because it has been confined to a desk a fist and then to a small rectangle in our hands.?

If we look at how organizations like National Institute of of Standards and Technology (NIST ) define a platform, they see it as “ a computer or hardware device and/or associated operating system or a virtual environment on which software can be installed or run.”

?So yes, the eve of spatial computing devices, or spatial computers has started and they will help usher in the next computing platform.?

In spatial computing, many companies, not just hardware companies, have a role to play. Like in mobile computing, many companies have been pivotal in getting us to where we are today.?

From devices to software to telecommunications and beyond, we wouldn’t be able to take advantage of mobile computing if it weren’t for the many components that have advanced in parallel to lead us to using a pretty small supercomputer in our hands.?

Now, we are moving into an era where computing expands to any surface,? can be accessed anywhere, and can be controlled using our eyes, hands, voice or gestures. Sometimes we might wear those computers on our faces or on our lapels or they will be incorporated into all sorts of surfaces. The form factor still remains to be seen and we will see a lot of new hardware and transitional equipment on the way to devices that combine compute, communications and convenience in the next decade.?

Components of Spatial Computing?

Just like mobile or personal computing isn’t defined by just one technology or one single piece of hardware, so too, spatial computing can’t be boiled down to just one single thing.?

As an evolving form of computing, spatial computing has many components that interconnect and come together to make spatial computing work. Here are some examples of hardware, software, data/information and connectivity that form part of spatial computing.?

On Spatial Computers

Spatial computers apply AI, Computer Vision, and XR to data from sources like:

• Passive and active sensors taking real-time measurements from the surroundings perceived by an individual user
• Sensors taking real-time measurements of the user’s body and objects manipulated by the user
• Applications running on hardware carried by the user, internet sources, and applications running on the cloud,?
• And more.

Because a spatial computer is a device that is imaging and even measuring objects that the user is seeing, its programmer has options for rendering content that are not constrained by the single plane of a traditional screen.?

The expectation that the images, sounds, and accelerations processed by a device are contributing to the real-time perceptions of an individual human, spatial computing blends virtual experiences into a user’s experience of the physical world. To allow a user to treat any flat surface in the immediate environment as a touchscreen or display is merely the most obvious extension of the existing paradigm of UI in mobile computing to spatial computing. Volumetric rendering, holographic processing, and sensor fusion will enable interfaces to data and applications that we cannot yet imagine.

Spatial Computing is a Field of Technology, Not Just A Single Technology

Both the business and technology sectors need to start shifting their understanding of spatial computing from thinking of it as a single technology to realizing that this is an evolving field of technology. This evolution is powered by the convergence of AI, computer vision, AR, VR, XR, and other technological innovations and advances.??

The expansion of computing is not limited to just a device, and it is not a trend. It is a paradigm shift in human communication and human-computer interaction. Thinking otherwise would be reductive.

If personal computing was about technology coming into our homes, offices and our desks, and mobile technology was about devices that we could carry with us on the go and allow us always to be connected and access information by typing on or talking to our phones, spatial computing is about expanding technology to new interfaces, accessing information anywhere in 3D form, and being able to communicate in whichever way we want, while these devices understand our world and start to have perception.???

The companies, governments, and organizations that understand this distinction will be the ones that will reap the benefits of spatial computing early. Those who built infrastructure and solutions early on when they understood how mobile computing would change business and communications are today at the forefront of change. Change in today’s fast-paced business and tech ecosystem is inevitable.