Key Developments in 3D and AR Technology

This week's defining shift for me is that creating 3D data is getting much simpler. New tools are turning everyday inputs like smartphone video, single photos, and text prompts into usable 3D environments and assets. This lowers the barrier to building the scenes, objects, and spaces that robotics, simulation, and immersive content rely on. It also shifts 3D creation from a specialized skill to something all teams can generate quickly and at the scale modern spatial systems require. This week’s news surfaced signals like these: 🤖 Parallax Worlds raised $4.9 million to turn standard video into digital twins for robotics testing. The platform turns basic walkthrough videos into interactive 3D spaces that teams can use to run their robot software and see how it performs before sending anything into the field. 🪑 Meta introduced SAM 3D to reconstruct objects and people from single images, producing full-textured meshes even when subjects are partly hidden or shot from difficult angles. The models were trained using real-world data and a staged process to improve accuracy. 🌏 Meta unveiled WorldGen, a research tool that generates full 3D worlds from text prompts. It produces complete, navigable spaces that can be used in Unity or Unreal and shows how AI can create environments without manual modeling. Why this matters: Faster 3D pipelines expand who can build, test, and refine spatial ideas. They turn 3D creation from a bottleneck into a regular part of development, which opens the door to more experimentation and better decisions earlier in the process. #robotics #digitaltwins #simulation #VR #AR #virtualreality #spatialcomputing #physicalAI #AI #3D

Spatial computing just had its most important month in a while. Hardware's heating back up. Enterprise blockers are falling. And memory itself? It just became... a place to be explored. Here are the 5 signals that matter most 🧵: 1/ Meta + Anduril: AR goes to war (and then to work). Meta is partnering with Anduril to deliver EagleEye, a rugged XR headset for the U.S. military—blending Meta’s optics + AI with Anduril’s battlefield OS. This isn’t about combat. It’s a blueprint for industrial AR—built for field work, logistics, energy, and more. The frontline interface for digital twins just got real. 2/ Apple Vision Pro quietly filled major enterprise gaps With visionOS 26, Vision Pro now supports Team Device Sharing. Your calibration & settings follow your iPhone—making shared headsets practical. More importantly: Shared Spatial Experiences means real-time, multi-user collaboration is now native. Apple didn’t shout about it—but this should accelerate enterprise adoption 3/ Snap + Niantic are building the AR Cloud. Snap’s new Specs (2026) will run Snap OS, feature OpenAI/Gemini AI, and support real-time contextual experiences. They also announced a multi-year partnership with Niantic Spatial to map the real world with centimeter precision. The result: persistent AR that everyone can see, everywhere. 4/ Real-time avatars just took a major leap. Apple’s new Personas look… eerily human. Google’s Project Beam? It uses Gemini AI to animate your likeness—so it can speak as you. Soon, your avatar could pitch, train, or meet… without you. This isn’t about avatars. It’s about the performance of self. 5/ 4D GSplats: Your memories just became places. A breakthrough from 4DV.ai turns regular videos into 3D scenes you can explore—with time as a dimension. Pause. Scrub. Walk around. All in your browser. It’s like stepping into a memory, not just watching it. And it hints at a future where our past is spatial, explorable, and alive. So what does all this mean? Check out the latest Dream Machines post here: https://lnkd.in/gUyDpRZe And if you enjoy, be sure to subscribe! Much more to come on spatial, AI, and the future of being human.

*** UPDATE: I’ve been testing the spatial photo feature, and so far it’s underwhelming. Despite tutorial videos indicating that photos should save as true 3D, that hasn’t been my experience at all. The images don’t appear to save with any actual depth. Apparently they're only viewable as spatial in the Apple Vision Pro. It’s possible this is user error, but I’m fairly tech-savvy. Additionally, when applying the spatial feature to existing photos, there’s no option to save the result. The only workaround I’ve found is to screen-record while physically moving the phone to create the illusion as a video. In its current form, this doesn’t feel like a gateway experience that meaningfully lowers the barrier to entry. Just my honest take. **** This week, Apple revealed its "Spatial Scenes" feature in iOS 26, allowing any iPhone user to give their 2D photos a genuine holographic effect with depth and parallax. While it may look like a cool photo filter, it's actually a masterclass in strategy. Here's the real business insight: By embedding this in the Photos app, Apple is training 1.3 billion users to expect and interact with dimensional content. This is how you achieve mass adoption—not with a $3,499 headset, but by normalizing spatial computing in the most personal, everyday context imaginable. This is the perfect "gateway" experience. It uses a familiar behavior (looking at photos) to introduce the fundamental concepts of 3D, holographics, and augmented reality. As users get comfortable with 3D wallpapers, they are being unconsciously prepared for a future of AR shopping, spatial collaboration, and fully immersive entertainment. From my perspective at Proto Hologram and as a member of the Themed Entertainment Association Western NA Division Board, I think we're at an inflection point. These types of immersive experiences and the technologies behind them are set to become mainstream expectations. When your customer expects depth and dimension in their personal photos, they will soon demand it everywhere—in retail, education, and at work. The barrier to entry for spatial content is about to evaporate. We're rapidly shifting from a world where spatial computing is a niche novelty to one where it's the standard. What do you think is the first application in your industry that will be transformed when users expect spatial experiences? How should businesses be preparing for this shift right now? #SpatialComputing #AugmentedReality #Apple #ThemedEntertainment #HologramTechnology

#Meta is quietly disrupting a $4 trillion #automotive #industry. And it has nothing to do with social media. What we are witnessing is the emergence of #XR (Extended Reality) as a core #industrial layer. Transforming how #vehicles are designed, built, sold, and experienced. 🔍 Where the transformation is happening: 🏭 Design & Manufacturing #Automotive #leaders are no longer building #factories first. They are simulating them. • #BMW Group built a complete #digital #twin of its Debrecen plant before construction, validating every robot station and workflow in #VR. • #Ford Motor Company is using AR enabled workflows where remote experts resolve 95%+ of 5,000 weekly dealer queries without being on site. This is not optimization. It is simulation led #engineering. 🏪 #Sales & #Customer #Experience The #showroom is no longer #physical. It is #immersive. • Brands like Audi, Fiat, and Kia are enabling customers to configure and #experience #vehicles #virtually. • #Virtual first sales models are reducing distribution costs from 12–15% to 7–8%. From selling #cars → to delivering experiences. 🔬 Safety & Intelligent Interfaces The windshield is becoming a decision layer. • Industries building #assembly and quality testing #training models in immetsive labs. •Mercedes Benz and Nissan are integrating #AR based HUDs that overlay real-time navigation and #safety data directly into the driver’s field of view. This is not display. It is context aware intelligence. 📊 The Scale of Shift The global #AR #VR automotive market stands at ~$4.4B today. Projected to reach $68B+ by 2035. 🧠 The Real Insight The automotive industry is no longer just building vehicles. It is building: • #Simulation #environments • #Immersive #customer #experiences • Intelligent operational systems #Meta for Work is not entering automotive. It is becoming part of its core architecture. The question is: Are we still designing machines — or engineering immersive, intelligent mobility ecosystems? #Automotive #DigitalTwin #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #Industry40 #Innovation #FutureOfMobility #DigitalTransformation #SmartManufacturing #EmergingTech #Auto

The Future of 3D Worlds is Here: World Labs AI Breaks Ground A year ago, tools like #BlockadeLabs amazed us with their ability to generate 360° equirectangular projections through text prompts, suitable for #videogames and #xr skyboxes (they’ve advanced considerably, and are one of a few GenAI companies I know that offer layers in creation and editing). As I marveled at that innovation, I thought, “Someday, this will evolve into fully #volumetric, #6DoF (six degrees of freedom) worlds.” I assumed we were at least 5–10 years away from that. Turns out, I was wildly wrong. Yesterday, #WorldLabsAI dropped a beta video that sent shockwaves through the #creative tech community. What they've achieved is nothing short of revolutionary. Imagine not just generating 2D images or #stereoscopic (3D depth from a fixed position) environments, but creating #interactive, #volumetric worlds you can move through. Yes, it’s still in beta, and yes, there are challenges like pixelization and smearing, but those are hurdles that technology always leaps over faster than we expect. Why This Matters: From ChatGPT to Creative Disruption Just two years ago, #ChatGPT redefined #AI accessibility, and now World Labs AI could do the same for creatives across industries like video games, #animation, #XR, and #VFX. Its impact may rival ChatGPT’s—but for a more specialized audience. Key innovations include: #Keyframe Precision: Creators can define camera movements on a spline path with intuitive controls directly in the #LDM 3D environment, skipping costly trial-and-error workflows. Interactive Exploration: With a Bluetooth controller (like PlayStation’s), users can navigate the space and control the camera, foreshadowing the possibility of XR headset integration and even real-time game map creation for infinite open worlds. Physics in Beta: Early demos show #interactive elements like picking up items—hinting at a future where AI can handle both world-building and #interactive mechanics. What’s Next? When World Labs AI becomes publicly available, expect a flood of experiments and uploads as creatives test its limits. The implications for studios are profound: why dedicate vast teams and resources to 3D production when a smaller team armed with AI can achieve similar—or better—results? Some studios may adapt, others will face hard decisions about how to leverage this groundbreaking tool, and scrappy new ones will be built from nothing into #franchises and #brands. Remember, we went from “same old, same old”, to earth-shattering changes across all horizontals and verticals in text, then images, then video, and to interactive worlds in only two years! Few are ready for the ever more radical transformations on the horizon, are you? * Want to stay ahead in the fast-evolving world where technology meets creative media? Follow me for the latest insights and updates! Thank you for liking, commenting, sharing, and/or following, because I can’t do this without all of you!

Recently, AI at Meta released SceneScript, a novel approach to 3D scene reconstruction that could significantly advance augmented reality and intelligent digital assistants. 🔍 Key Points: - Uses end-to-end machine learning to infer room geometry from visual data - Encodes scenes in a compact, complete, interpretable language format - Trained on a 100K simulated interior dataset for privacy - Can predict object locations, states, and complex shapes - Enables key AR use cases like navigation and spatial reasoning 💡 How it works: - By giving the network a large amount of training data, the SceneScript model learns how to encode visual data into a fundamental representation of the scene, which it can then decode into language that describes the room layout. - SceneScript predicts architectural elements in a sequence, learning to encode visual scenes into a fundamental language representation through large-scale training on synthetic data. 🚀 Potential Impact: - Enabling AR glasses that blend digital content with physical environments - Allowing language models to understand and reason about physical spaces - Advancing 3D scene understanding and reconstruction research - This work represents an important step toward more immersive and intelligent AR experiences. Read the full post for more insights: https://lnkd.in/ggMC5spU #AI #AugmentedReality #3DReconstruction #MachineLearning #MetaAI #datascience

Only 1% (!!) of retailers are using AR. It's the biggest sleeping giant in all of eCom. Here's where things stand TODAY and the FUTURE brands and retailers need to prepare for ⤵️ BACKGROUND: Flat screens are misaligned with how we experience the world. We live in 3D. We shop in 2D. That disconnect drives returns, reduces conversions, and erodes consumer confidence. AR and 3D are closing that gap. E-commerce lives and dies on trust. In physical stores, consumers see, touch, and interact with products. Online, AR bridges that experience, transforming hesitation into certainty. TODAY’S LANDSCAPE (1) AR is already proving ROI. 70% higher conversions. 28% lower return rates. (2) Adoption is accelerating. Advancements in device hardware, 5G, and AI-powered rendering are making AR scalable. (3) Market leaders are setting the tone. AMAZON is creating the standards others will follow.  IKEA has positioned AR as central to furniture shopping. WALMART is bringing AR to the masses. And this is just the beginning. Brands and retailers need to get on board because the train isn't slowing down any time soon. TOMORROW’S LANDSCAPE Phase 1: Visual AR (2025 and beyond): Virtual try-ons and room visualizers are delivering results now. Phase 2: Haptic feedback, full sensory, and beyond screens (2030+): Devices will let consumers “feel” textures, unlocking new AR categories. Shopping will integrate sound, smell, and touch. Mixed reality will redefine what a “store” means. This might feel like science fiction, but it’s not *if* this happens—it’s *when*. Waiting will make catching up far more costly. 2D e-commerce isn’t dead yet, but it’s on its way out. AR and 3D will define how consumers shop in the next five years. The brands investing now aren’t just meeting expectations—they’re shaping the future.