TL;DR: interactive visuals (ivs) are media, data and code combined. I love ivs. They 're awesome. And ever since beeing a Macintosh newbie in the mid 1990s I've been sucked into this exiting adventure.

The actual ignition happened in the moment my first computer, a brand new All-in-One Performa 5200 was introduced to me by a remarkably friendly guy at "Systematics" in Bremen (I think they became one  of the first Apple Stores in Germany later on).

This guy did know A LOT about Macs but he would not bug me with his knowledge which was totally different from the overwhelming consultings in the PC stores I had visited before.

Instead he just inserted Apples "Multimedia CD" and showed me how to easily interact with it. I was sold. Right away. This was it. And from that moment on I knew I too wanted to produce media people would love to interact with. And I wanted this Mac. Instantly. Max this one out for me, gimme it and everything that goes with it. All of it. WOW. What a release. Like an explosion. From one moment to the next I felt a freedom of mind I 've never experienced before. Internet, Videocard, .. this machine would allow to enfold myself and just work on exiting tasks the easy way, no fancy BS tec workarounds required. Everything needed was already built in and fully functional. Here we go...

In my opinion that's exactly how it's still got to be today. What Apple showed me was that in order to get a satisfying output on the "user's side" the "maker's side" has to take all the effort up front and think backwards from the result in order to find the best way to achieve it.

Why did I just never understand this when I was in school? Or did some teachers just did not understand this teaching things the "PC way"? I don't know, I always looked out the window instead of letting them bore me to death. Output: I had to learn long shitty old poems within one afternoon some of which I can still pull like a pistol today ("John Maynard war unser Steuermann..."). Well, that sure helped a lot...

- - - - CAUTION : boring part ahead - - - -

- - - - Extra-CAUTION : there is more to play with in other sections - this is the more boring section. It's about single boring steps towards to what I do today. If you're running outta time: scroll down to get to know what I like or not, grab your present for visiting me at the way bottom of the page and get the hell outta here - or take a couple more minutes and play with the Logoscanner before - it could be the key to a new world.... - - - -

So anyways: after quite a few years of self paced learning with my Macs I knew something about digital visuals and their exif data. And web developement. I knew about data bases and Java Virtual Machines and I had an idea of what could be achieved with both "client side" and "server side" coding (executing cgi s just took endless). WTF: learning was (is!) fun - and the more I learned about playing with code the more I realized I'm always only scratching the surface. There was so much more underneath. It was just overwhelming. Time to refocus maybe? It turned out it wasn't Java but JavaScript which became more and more important to  know for me and my ambitions. The fact that once loaded the code executes lightning fast on the users device, which again allowes for quick interactions with servers since they don't have to interpret but only deliver the data.

My overall understanding for code was (and still is) helpful. But readjusting focus REALLY ment to go back to the goal! To help solve real world problems via interactiv visuals and how to get there. And at the end come up with the solution, the easy path for the user. Just trigger something and you're good to go...

So what would be some real use cases that allow or need for companies to go new ways to achieve their goals (at all or at least way more efficient)? Here come my times of taking the first steps into simple "VR". It helped for even connected interactions without having to be at the same location.

- - - - Caution : another boring part - - - -

Flying drones as a hobby was what brought me into thist next step forward. I immidiatly got me a commercial license when I found out how to combine single fotos into 360 media and have the user's browser interpret the exif and meta data the way I wanted it to be. From now on I was able to combine aerial 360s with grounded 360s by stacking software workflows. Using the right tools you now could have the user "teleport" from one location to the next one and interact with dedicated parts of the media. Depending on the user's device the media would be automaticly available in different screen resolutions. Since it all was web based you could use any desktop or a mobile device for the output and even a VR headset to experience locations you were not even close to at the moment.

Nowadays there a different cloud platforms out there helping you to set up virtual tours. All of them have different strenghts and weaknesses. Then there are more code heavy software packages, that allow for a maximum of features and tweaking and selfhosting. Sometimes I combine different solutions with the help of a little code snippet: remembering the Apple lesson from the beginning the most important question for me choosing the right way to go is to first ask for the clients interests and goals and talk to him about it. The goal defines the tools needed. The other way around does not work for me, so bragging with features trying to sell something to someone is not a way I can recommend.

Back to the Story:

VR is quite a bit more than 360VR. Still the crossplatform and web based part is what all further steps should have in common given the condition our user should not be kept hostage using a dedicated device or an app only. Even though these things are possible they should not be mandatory for general purposes.

Refocusing on goal: bridging reality gaps in order to bridge communication gaps, helping the client to be able to unmistakably communicate with 2nd and 3rd parties about the exact same thing VISIBLE right in front of them. Not only can users see and communicate but also INTERACT with VIRTUAL MEDIA (based on given permissions) producing IMPACT in REALITY.

Now you could think: well, this would be a typical VR scenario for the most part of it. True. Exept for tasks like to f.e. support a technician on a windmill somewhere out. Now realities have to get extended and mixed with an AR component as an overlay over what the camera of the user divice shows.

So how do we get there? Yup, unknot backwards.

Next step: preparing substeps for subgoal "mixing realities" for goal bridgeing communication gaps (our real world problem).

sub1: the model needs to be not only in 360, but in real 3D for real objects to be realisticly displayed and handled in XR.

6 DOF (6 deegrees of freedom) instead of just teleporting like in common 360VR (3DOF), where you can look around in any direction but you are kinda "anchored" to the location the camera was at when the single fotos were taken. 3D and 6 DOF enables us to "walk around" an object or within a virtual room. This we can achieve via pointcloud data from photogrammetry and/or 3D scanning. For both capure methods I again wanted the processing software to be platform independend or at least the cloud software to be open for downloading the data to have maximum freedom of manipulating our point clouds in order to get any 3D file we want (checked). We also want computer generated 3D models to work(this one was easy) (checked).

sub2: the AR part

We could code everything by hand. There are open JS libraries on GitHub. (There are also service providers offering AR apps, but we want a web based solution for independent and easy user access). And finally there are great and open minded tec partners way smarter than I am helping us with some steps in the process so we can focus on the "composition" for the desired output. That's where we invest. For me this is the way to go. Now I can focus on the execution, only finally manually combining the done for me code snippets from our specialized partners. Sometimes I hate having to catch myself getting lost in way too much detail, but I sure do like to get exactly my desired result. (checked).

Putting the parts together (XR-result)

(checked) I cannot get into to much into details here yet, since mighty competition will be brutal. Let me refocus again, get a step forward and double down on a segment before I publish this one. So what's the field we can be most useful in? -> (final thoughts)