Overview: Mixed Reality in Microsoft 365 - Power Apps & SharePoint Spaces

What is Mixed Reality?

Mixed reality is a blending of the physical and digital worlds in which users may interact with digital and real-world objects while maintaining a presence in the physical world.

Why Mixed Reality and Why Now?

- The opportunity to enhance Human Cognition (Cognition - The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.)

- Mixed Reality is recognized as the Third Way of Computing, the first being Personal Computing and the second being Smartphones. It is also considered Intelligent Edge.

Unique Value of Mixed Reality

- Create, collaborate, learn in new ways.

- Increase efficiency and quality

- Empower all employees

Introducing Mixed Reality in Power Apps

Source: Microsoft

Power Apps is being used by thousands of organizations to digitize and automate existing business processes. The low-code application development platform allows everyone, from the professional developer to the first line worker, to quickly build apps that help improve their business.

Capabilities in Power Apps for Mixed Reality

1. Validate fit before work begins

Source: Microsoft

When you are working in the real world, you need to understand physical spaces. Now in Power Apps, you will be able to use 3D models or virtual volumetric representations to find out if a pathway is large enough; if the product will fit, or how placement might impact the line of sight.

2. Take Measurements

Source: Microsoft

When your workflow requires understanding dimensions of the physical world, you will be able to take linear or volumetric measurements directly through the Power App. Use the results to kick off automated processes or store these back into your data source.

3. Communicate better with 3D models

Source: Microsoft

When you need to visualize how products will look in a space, you will be able to bring 3D models into Power Apps. Leverage the Common Data Service to store these models as native data types (similar to images) or use existing data connectors to access models from other locations such as SharePoint and One Drive. Your users will be able to view and interact with 3D models, place them in the real world, and take a photo of the scene to share with others.

4. Communicate better with 2D Models

Source: Microsoft

If you don’t have 3D models – no problem. They are not the only way to leverage mixed reality. Traditional images like jpgs and pngs can also be placed in the real world to help visualize how a product might exist in that space.

Introducing Mixed Reality with SharePoint Spaces

Source: Microsoft

SharePoint spaces is a web-based, immersive platform, which lets you create and share, secure, and extensible mixed reality experiences. Add a new dimension to your intranet by using 2- and 3D web parts to create your mixed reality vision.

Building space is a lot like building a modern site - that is, you create the space and choose options such as structure, background, and theme. Then add web parts for your 3D objects, 360 Degree images and videos, 2D images, and text, and more.

Check out our Webinar on Exploring the Power of Mixed Reality with Power Apps and SharePoint Spaces

 If you have any questions you can reach out to our team here.

Power of Mixed Reality in Microsoft 365

Overview:

Mixed Reality is the merging of the real and virtual world to produce the new environment where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time.

It’s a combination of VR and AR. VR means Virtual Reality. This provides a virtual experience which is completely digitally created. User can enter to the virtual world by wearing VR headsets. As user moves his head, they can look around in three dimensions. AR means Augmented Reality. This augments reality by overlaying virtual objects on top of it. Example: Instagram Filters or Snapchat filters. User can’t interact directly with virtual objects in AR.

We can achieve Mixed Reality in Microsoft 365 using the following Microsoft Product.

1. SharePoint Spaces

2. Power Apps

Chapters for this session:

• Overview of Mixed Reality

• Get Started with SharePoint Spaces

• Real World Use Cases and scenarios for SharePoint Spaces

o Product Showcase in Mixed Reality

o Virtual Training with SharePoint Spaces

o Virtual Onboarding with SharePoint Spaces

• Get Started with Power Apps Mixed Reality

• Real World Use Cases and scenarios for Power Apps Mixed Reality

o Online Shopping Application with 3D Viewer Capability

o View 3D objects in Mixed Reality

o Measure Distance, Area and Volume with Power Apps in real time 

o View Shape in Mixed Reality 

The session is focused for Business Users. Here, we have covered the majority of the concept for Mixed Reality in traditional intranet as well as in Power Apps.

Recording of live session:

Conclusion:

This is how the Power of Mixed Reality works with SharePoint Spaces and Power Apps. Isn’t that amazing?

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.

Introduction to SharePoint Spaces

Overview:
Microsoft recently launched SharePoint Spaces and it is in preview at this moment. During this article we will cover the following things.

• What is SharePoint Spaces?
• Characteristics of SharePoint Spaces
• Real-Life Use cases for SharePoint Spaces

What is SharePoint Space?

• SharePoint spaces is a web-based, immersive platform, which allows us to create and share, secure, and extensible mixed reality experiences.
• SharePoint Space adds a new dimension to our intranet by using 2D and 3D web parts to create a mixed-reality vision.
• Building space is a lot like building a modern site -- that is, we create the space by choosing options such as structure, background, and theme. And then add web parts using 3D objects, 360° images & videos, 2D images, text, and more.

Characteristics of SharePoint Spaces:

• Cross-platform - Supports a wide range of web browsers and mixed reality devices.
• Made for creators - Commingle 2D and 3D content to create custom experience that tells our stories in stunning 360° view.
• Secure and compliant - Secure on Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
• Integrated and extensible - Since this is a platform, Microsoft will grow over time to include 3rd party web parts and extensions using the SharePoint Framework.

Real-Life Use Cases where SharePoint Spaces can be utilized:
We all know SharePoint Spaces provide Mixed Reality experience to our SharePoint intranet portal. It can be used in the following areas:

• Virtual Tours - Tour of a New Building, Demo of  New Product Launch
• Training - Training with 3D Models and 360° videos. Virtual Simulation is more affordable and can be repeated multiple times so that your employees have the practice they need to accomplish their work.
• Learning beyond the classroom - Teachers can import visual lessons, visualizations, and videos (2D, 3D, and 360°) that support their lessons and create a powerfully engaging learning environment.
• Onboarding Activities - SharePoint Spaces help new employees with their organizations and teammates more quickly by exploring the company and their colleagues via a virtual organizational chart. Also, 3-D office maps can help newcomers to get used with the new environment faster.

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.