Sports is usually a three-dimensional activity, but most media is in two dimensions which forces media providers to flatten the world in order to visualise it. But this is about to change with eXtended Reality(XR) including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).
In this demo we showed how sports visualisation can be done in three dimensions using AR and displayed right on your coffee table.
Role
I served as the project lead from Ericsson Research, I worked with another Engineer from Ericsson, recruited and trained an intern who was brought on to do the heavy lifting, and a media and AR expert from Ericsson Research. I collaborated with partners (Piero, Opta, Ericsson Media Services) to understand the data we had, their customers expectations, and what would make an impressive demo; I worked with our engineers and experts to understand HoloLens’s capabilities and limitations. Based on all the above information, I iteratively designed the best possible experience.
Working with a then new technology was tough, but the hardest part in this project was to manage conflicting expectations. I came away from this experience with renewed experience and appreciation of how to work with people from different backgrounds.
Impact
This demo was shown at IBC in September 2016. It was well received, especially since it was done during the early days of AR and HoloLens. This project also won an internal award.
Future
What was shown so far was limited to the data available and licensing of content. We also built other concepts that were not shown at IBC to facilitate a conversation around what this future could look like if we had access to licensed content such as videos of the match.
