NGRAIN Smart Glasses

Eyewear can be functional as well as fashionable.  Although clothing is our primary focus, glasses are clearly a fashion accessory.  Therefore, it is important for fashionistas and the apparel industry to pay attention to new technologies relevant to wearable technology such as new eyewear opportunities.

NGRAIN announced the availability of NGRAIN Viewer for Android, a new app for Android tablets and smart glass devices, enabling the deployment of industrial 3D content created with NGRAIN Producer Pro. 

NGRAIN Viewer for Android offers organizations working with heavy equipment, assemblies, and other industrial assets in the field, the opportunity to easily explore possible use cases for smart glasses and 3D content without the need to invest in the development of a mobile 3D app. NGRAIN is further making Viewer for Android open source, offering R&D teams and developers an excellent starting point to customize and create their own industrial applications.

With NGRAIN Viewer for Android, NGRAIN provides the source code to bootstrap a 3D app for Android, load 3D content, view animations, play step-by-step tasks, and interact with content from NGRAIN Producer Pro. Developers can then quickly develop a customized 3D industrial app for Android by modifying and extending the NGRAIN source code. Using NGRAIN Producer Pro, organizations can rapidly create 3D content for these custom apps without the need for expertise in 3D graphics, custom scripting, or further programming.

“Smart glasses are creating opportunities for businesses to connect their employees in the field with access to the right information at the right time, and NGRAIN Viewer for Android, coupled with NGRAIN Producer Pro, is providing the best way for these organizations to experience this potential first-hand, enabling the creation and deployment of 3D industrial apps at a fraction of the cost and time of an outsourced, custom solution,” said Barry Po, Senior Director, Product and Business Development of NGRAIN.

NGRAIN is proud to be partnered with Epson in delivering an optimized experience for the Epson® Moverio® BT-200 and BT-300 smart eyewear. “The largest barrier to augmented reality (AR) for smart glasses is the cost of content creation, since the cost of creating step-by-step 3D models and AR content is too expensive to be practical for a lot of applications,” said Eric Mizufuka, product manager, New Ventures for Epson America. “What’s great about the NGRAIN Viewer for Android is it dramatically lowers the cost, while maintaining the quality of these high-end content experiences for AR glasses. This type of next-gen product is a critical part to helping the AR glasses ecosystem mature to mainstream adoption.”

Launching its first-generation smart glasses in 2011, Epson recently announced the Moverio BT-300, the world’s lightest binocular, transparent smart glasses with an OLED display. Combining breakthrough silicon-based OLED digital display technology, the Intel Atom processor, and Android OS 5.1, the Moverio BT-300 enables a truly transparent mobile AR experiences for organizations. The Epson Moverio BT-300 will be available in late 2016 and may be pre-ordered at Epson.com/Moverio. For a complete product overview of the Moverio BT-300, please visit the following link. 

NGRAIN Viewer for Android supports any Android device with a minimum API Level 15 (Android 4.0.3). Tools are available to convert existing 3D assets with virtually every major 3D CAD/DCC format including Inventor, CATIA, Parasolid, Pro/E, Rhino, SolidWorks, STEP, DXF, OBJ, DWH, STL, and more, for use with NGRAIN Producer Pro and the NGRAIN Viewer for Android.

The NGRAIN Viewer for Android is free for download via the NGRAIN Web site. For more information on NGRAIN and its products, please visit www.ngrain.com.

About NGRAIN

NGRAIN is the developer of innovative, interactive 3D applications that support industrial activities such as inspection, maintenance, and training. Leading organizations from aerospace, defense, energy, manufacturing, and healthcare in 27 countries around the world use NGRAIN’s patented technology today, transforming the way they work in the field.

About Epson

Epson is a global technology leader dedicated to connecting people, things and information with its original efficient, compact and precision technologies. With a lineup that ranges from inkjet printers and digital printing systems to 3LCD projectors, smart glasses, sensing systems and industrial robots, the company is focused on driving innovations and exceeding customer expectations in inkjet, visual communications, wearables and robotics.

Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the Epson Group comprises more than 67,000  employees in 90 companies around the world, and is proud of its contributions to the communities in which it operates and its ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impacts.

Epson America, Inc., based in Long Beach, Calif., is Epson’s regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/EpsonAmerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica).

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