WeAre — Michael Hengherr

What I built

Five initiatives that moved the product

01 Format

An open exchange format for CAD data

CAD import used to rely on proprietary loaders inside the VR client. I moved it to a dedicated open exchange format and a conversion step in the backend. That opened up a far wider range of libraries and tools for bringing data into the system: supported file formats grew from a handful to roughly ten times as many, and the VR client code became much easier to maintain.

02 Cloud

Autoscaled cloud processing

Most of the data processing ran on servers we maintained ourselves. Moving it to autoscaling clusters in the cloud allowed far more parallel processing and cut waiting times for our customers significantly.

03 Scale

3D streaming and native Autodesk file support

Streaming 3D data made it possible to process and display very complex customer models in VR, and load times dropped significantly. Native loading of Autodesk file formats also saved customers hours of pre-processing: they could upload their CAD data in the formats they use in their daily work.

04 Process

Proper development and release workflows

Documentation, software development, release management and quality control now followed defined workflows. That gave involved stakeholders more transparency and improved pre-production quality as well as long-term maintainability.

05 Customers

Close contact with key accounts

I stayed in close contact with our most important customers and made sure their voices were heard when they needed timely support. That directly contributed to them becoming the most vocal champions of the product, among them SMS group, mtex and BWI.

Picking a model from the project files

Overhead view of a large industrial plant model — A plant model seen from above

Markup documents shared in the room

A telescope antenna model in WeAre Rooms

In the field

Three key accounts, three ways to use the product

How SMS group, mtex and BWI work with the platform, and where they talk about it themselves.

01 Customer

SMS group

SMS group is an international machine and plant builder for the metals industry. Building plants means constant interfaces with new partners, and drawings regularly led to misunderstandings, so SMS group set out to bring multiplayer online gaming technology to engineering. WeAre Rooms is now used in all project phases, from sales through engineering, purchasing, manufacturing and assembly to introducing staff to the plant. Jan Buchner, head of assembly planning and project handling, estimates that it saves 70 to 80 percent of the time compared with phone calls and about 50 percent compared with video conferencing, and calls the user interface the biggest advantage: easy to use for everyone.

sms-group.com Video: testimonial by Jan Buchner (DE) Interview: VR awakens the creativity of engineers (DE)

02 Customer

mtex antenna technology

mtex antenna technology builds large, complex parabolic antennas of 2 to 35 meters for radio astronomy, geodesy and space applications. In 2021 the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory commissioned mtex to develop, design and build the first 18-meter prototype antenna for the ngVLA, a planned network of 244 radio telescope dishes that is meant to become the largest radio astronomy facility in the Northern Hemisphere; the prototype was handed over in 2025. mtex uses WeAre Rooms in project handling to visualize components, discuss them with customers and find solutions faster. It is also used for design reviews and larger events. CEO Lutz Stenvers was especially impressed by how realistic working in VR feels, which is what convinced him to buy the tool.

mtex-at.com Video: testimonial by mtex CEO Lutz Stenvers (DE) ngVLA: about the project Press release: open house with NRAO (DE) mtex: precision into space Liebherr: looking at the stars with mtex (DE) Video: Precision into space

03 Customer

BWI

BWI is the digitalization partner of the German armed forces. Since October 2019 its innovation unit has run VR-Lage with the Luftwaffe: a shared virtual situation room in the cloud where pilots and commanders at different locations plan, brief and debrief air missions as avatars, with maps, whiteboards and the air tasking order in front of them. WeAre was part of the partner team from the first phase, providing the VR conference solution the room is built on. The second phase (2020–2021) added 4D maps and refined voice and gesture control. Other partners BWI names include Esri for geospatial data, Fraunhofer IOSB, which built the digital situation table, and a voice-AI start-up. I led the project on WeAre’s side.

bwi.de Article: the situation briefing of the future (DE) Article: the Luftwaffe visit (DE) Article: the virtual situation room (DE) Article: interview with the BWI project lead (DE) Video: VR-Lage, Next Level Collaboration Video: Spatial Computing

Sources

Screenshots and video

The screenshots on this page are stills from the video below, published by WeAre GmbH on YouTube and used with their permission. The link leads to YouTube; nothing is loaded from there unless you click.

WeAre: The Virtual Reality Engineering Base