Augmented reality technology provider NexTech AR Solutions Corp. announced Friday that the company is taking its industrywide software development in a new direction: to Hollywood.

With its new AR Studio in Hollywood, NexTech intends to launch a proprietary entertainment venue that will focus on producing immersive content using next generation AR on mobile devices and smart glasses.

“NexTech is building an innovative concept for immersive entertainment that I’ve been waiting over five years to materialize,” Barry Sandrew, a  visual effects pioneer and serial entrepreneur acting as adviser to NexTech. “Within AR Studios the technology, talent and opportunity to create this new form of storytelling have converged into what promises to become a game changing entertainment venue.”

Augmented reality uses cameras and display technology in order to overlay virtual objects onto reality. Using this layering technology, users can view objects and things as if they exist in reality just by pointing a mobile device’s screen at an open area, a table or a wall.

For example, AR marketing campaigns for furniture could display a new couch in an empty spot in a room or change a wall’s paint color or wallpaper. This technology has been used to project everything from people into rooms, cars into garages, create virtual games that can be played on a tabletop and even bring architectural and product models to life for business meetings.

NexTech’s claim to fame is providing end-to-end AR solutions for numerous industries designed to enhance marketing, advertisements and sales. The company provides everything in the AR pipeline from 3-D product capture to 360-degree displays that take into account floors and walls in order to display items.

NexTech also developed a “try-it-on” feature for eyewear that allows customers to see what eyeglasses will look like on their face before purchase by using their own phone.

With the opening of AR Studios, NexTech is reaching into a new industry that could take advantage of this technology. Advertising and sales is not that dissimilar from entertainment, ads must attract and hold attention, some tell a story and many use characters much like movies.

An AR “feature film” would play out a skit that wouldn’t take place just inside a screen, but in a place that the user can already see. It’s the difference between watching Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on a television and seeing the play acted out on the grass of a backyard lawn, on the living room carpet or even the kitchen table. An AR feature could even lead the watcher between rooms and to shift around in order to find or activate different scenes and take advantage of objects in the vicinity for a more aerobic experience.

“AR Studios might be the most exciting and important work we do at NexTech as we are creating a new mass medium which will change the viewing experience of content forever,” said NexTech President Paul Duffy. “Being able to see a volumetric 3-D human in your house, or anywhere for that matter, changes everything from entertainment to education, medicine, advertising and even gaming.”

Augmented reality is an up-and-coming technology that is being explored for business, industrial use as well as entertainment.  According to a Gartner report, 100 million customers will shop in AR online and in stores by 2020 — and there are millions of devices already shipped capable of running AR content with smart glasses still in development. The market is predicted to reach $198 billion by 2025, up from an estimated $6 billion in 2018, according to Statista.

Image: NexTech