Use of hydraulic cordless shears from Holmatro, in a VR environment, to safely experience the shears’ strength, durability and ease of use at the fair.
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Holmatro came to us with an interesting challenge. How could they communicate the power, durability and ease of use of their new Industrial EVO 3 line of hydraulic cutters? They wanted to present this to the end-users in an expo-like environment and in a safe manner?
An industry leader in industrial and rescue equipment, Holmatro makes cordless cutting shears that can be used by firefighters. For example, cutting away a car door when someone needs to be quickly rescued from a burning car. Do understand that this kind of equipment cannot just be used at a trade show; it is simply too dangerous.
But yeah, experiencing what it’s like to cut through pieces of steel with it is just really bold anyway. Something you would like to try?
To facilitate this and make the experience of hydraulic shears as real as possible. We created a VR experience for all visitors to experience! Using the VIVE Trackers and accurate 3D modelling, we brought the industrial battery scissors to life 1:1. Thus, physical scissors became suitable for use in VR.
So the end-user held the actual Holmatro scissors (disabled), and saw them in the VR environment. They could use them to cut digital items like car doors, and iron pipes. This was the perfect use case to get people working with the physical scissors. Once they were familiar with the weight, handles and size of the scissors, but without the danger involved.
The goal of this project?
Enabling fair visitors to experience and use the physical scissors in a safe manner, without potential injury to visitors, or the booth itself. This certainly succeeded, using the scissors as a “controller” allowed people to experience the power of scissors in VR.
What led to that success?
What makes this case very special is integrating a physical component into a VR environment. Normally a VR experience is already very realistic, but you often hold controllers to control your hands with. The ability to use the scissors ás controllers, which you could also see 1:1 back in VR, makes this experience even more realistic and thus more impactful. Not only does this fool your brain with imagery, but because you also have the tactile stimuli from your hands, the illusion is further enhanced. This gives users the most realistic experience of cutting and trying out the scissors, in a safe way.