Siemens & Sony unite to transform industrial metaverse

Siemens and Sony have announced their collaboration on a new immersive engineering technology designed to transform the industrial metaverse.

Siemens Digital Industries Software has partnered with Sony to integrate Siemens' NX software with Sony's head-mounted display technology, bringing about significant advancements in immersive engineering. Sony's XR HMD (SRH-S1) is a key component, featuring high-definition 1.3-type OLED Microdisplays with 4K resolution and proprietary rendering technology that enables realistic 3D rendering. This headset is designed for prolonged use, ensuring comfort and stability.

Bob Haubrock, Senior Vice President of Product Engineering Software at Siemens Digital Industries Software, stated, "We embarked on this collaborative project with Sony to deliver the power of the industrial metaverse to our community of designers, engineers and manufacturers directly in our flagship product engineering software."

"After previewing the HMD at CES last year, our collective teams have built a set of tools that revolutionise how mixed reality is used in the engineering space - to not only support global collaboration based on high-fidelity 3D models but to enable co-creation directly on vital 3D CAD data in a managed, secure environment. Today, we are making this next-generation set of technologies available to our customers."

Seiya Amatatsu from the Incubation Centre, XR Technology Development Division at Sony Corporation, commented, "Since announcing our collaboration with Siemens at CES 2024, we've had opportunities to get direct feedback from Siemens' customers about the technology, and as Siemens' NX users ourselves, we were excited that many of them share our enthusiasm for the potential of Immersive Engineering."

Ian Briggs, Founder and Head of Design at Briggs Automotive Company (BAC), noted, "Siemens' Immersive Engineering technology helps our designers and engineers see, design and edit parts more easily with the unique controllers, enable our customers to experience their car at human-scale before it is built and help stakeholders from production easily collaborate with designers and engineers to validate parts before manufacturing."

Siemens' Immersive Engineering toolset is designed for the product engineering and manufacturing community. It offers high-fidelity mixed reality and enhanced collaboration. The toolset's components include the NXTM Immersive Explorer and NXTM Immersive Designer.

The NX Immersive Explorer is adaptable to various headsets and facilitates informal design reviews with 3D CAD data. Meanwhile, the NX Immersive Designer, specifically designed to leverage Sony's head-mounted display and controllers, provides an interactive environment for manipulating 3D product models directly within NX without additional software.

Siemens also offers the NX Immersive Collaborator, which enables co-located and remote design review sessions with multiple participants. This solution builds on combined capabilities, requiring Siemens' cloud-enabled NX X to host collaboration sessions. Participants can join remotely or locally via VR or desktop. The session hosts are billed, while participants can join without cost.

The NX Immersive Designer is immediately available for Siemens customers, equipped with the latest updates, and accessible through value-based licensing. The NX Immersive Collaborator, part of the NX X update, will launch later this month.