Varjo Introduces ‘Teleport’ to Seamlessly Transform Real Environments into VR

Varjo, known for crafting top-notch XR headsets, has unveiled a new 3D scanning service designed for smartphones aimed at enterprises. This innovative tool promises speedy creation of photorealistic environments, which can be explored in virtual reality as well as on traditional screens.

Introducing Teleport, this paid application grants users the ability to capture and faithfully recreate real locations. According to Varjo, based in Finland, this whole process only takes five to ten minutes, making it far quicker than the conventional photogrammetry techniques.

Compatible devices for capturing include iPhones and iPads that run on iOS 17 or later. This encompasses a relatively broad range of devices, starting from the iPhone XR and upwards, as well as Apple’s 8th generation iPad and newer models.

The “digital twins” produced can be accessed across various platforms—on phones and PCs, or through Varjo’s own XR headsets and other leading PC VR headsets.

Teleport leverages advances in Gaussian Splatting along with NVIDIA GPU-trained generative models. The cloud processes these 3D models initially, rendering them on your device. This setup requires an Internet connection only for downloading the model; exploring it offline is perfectly possible.

Currently, Teleport is available at $30 per month, with a seven-day free trial up for grabs. Upon signing up, users can enjoy a plethora of captures for free in both standard and high-definition through its web viewer, and experience the top-tier quality captures via the desktop client.

This launch coincides with an expansion of Varjo’s Series D funding round, bringing new investors into the fold, such as Beyond Capital, Nishikawa Communications, and NVIDIA. Although the exact figures of the recent funding haven’t been revealed, Varjo mentioned to Road to VR that this brings their total funding to approximately €180 million ($188 million USD).

Varjo plans to utilize this funding boost to ramp up the adoption of their XR hardware and software solutions in industrial sectors. CEO Timo Toikkanen highlighted that Varjo aims to harness AI and machine learning to deepen the integration between the real and virtual worlds, aiming to boost productivity and efficiency for their industrial customers.

Meanwhile, Meta is busy working on a similar consumer-focused tool, announced in September, known as Horizon Hyperscape. It was launched as a demo to demonstrate Meta’s aspirations for photorealistic environments. According to Meta, creators will eventually be able to “build worlds within Horizon by using a phone to scan a room and recreate it,” although a timeline for this rollout remains uncertain.