Varjo Receives Epic MegaGrant

Varjo has received a MegaGrant by Epic Games to further develop its mixed reality support for Unreal Engine. Epic MegaGrants is a $100 million program that supports creators doing amazing things with Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community. The sizable MegaGrant will be utilized in support of the Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition headset as part of the mainline offering of Unreal Engine, strengthening immersive solutions for enterprises worldwide.

The Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition brings unique features to the market offering human-eye resolution visual fidelity (over 60 PPD in the center of the field of view), integrated depth sensing, and low latency video pass-through mixed reality. With the Varjo XR-1, developers are able to create highly immersive, cost-effective virtual and mixed reality simulation experiences for a broad range of use cases including industrial design, AEC, medicine/telemedicine, research, and simulation and training scenarios across land, sea, air, and space use cases. With Varjo, trainees can for the first time read text on displays and interact with the smallest buttons, switches and gauges, as well as see objects at realistic visibility ranges.

“We are thrilled to have this support from Epic Games to expand our delivery of mixed reality solutions for the most demanding enterprise VR/XR applications through Unreal Engine,” said John Burwell, global lead of simulation and training at Varjo. “With OpenXR as the target interface, developers will, for the first time, have access to the industry’s most advanced enterprise-grade mixed reality features to support composing real and virtual environments for a wide variety of applications. Planned features include full support for Varjo’s photorealistic visual fidelity, eye tracking and real-time chroma keying. The resulting solution is likely to position Unreal Engine as the most advanced platform for enterprise mixed reality development.”

Varjo devices are used worldwide by commercial, government, and academic organizations to train pilots and astronauts, conduct automotive design reviews, and run consumer and clinical research leveraging immersive environments. With Varjo, professionals can create and train in true-to-life VR/XR with analytics capabilities enabled by the integrated 20/20 Eye Tracker. Varjo’s key customers include Volvo Cars, Boeing Starliner, FlightSafety International, and Lockheed Martin.