Category Archives: Events

VRTO - Pimax Special Event - Toronto - event poster

VRTO Presents PIMAX’s “VR 2.0 – In Dreams We Live” Canada Exclusive Engagement + Special Talks January 2019

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VRTO proudly presents a special event
in partnership with House of VR and the Canadian Film Centre/ideaboost 

PIMAX’s
Exclusive Canadian Engagement

“The Pimax “8K” headset was the result of VR’s most successful Kickstarter campaign, beating out all others, including Oculus, with $4.23M raised when the campaign concluded in November 2017. It’s primary claims to fame were its impressively wide FOV, high-resolution panels, and incorporation of SteamVR tracking. ~ RoadToVR

pimax fov

VRTO is back for its first meetup in 2019! Join us for the exclusive launch of Pimax VR in Canada. Coming straight from CES 2019 with a series of new announcements about the direction of their envelope-pushing head-mounted Virtual Reality displays.

Kevin Henderson, Head of US Operations of Pimax VR, will be joining VRTO in Toronto to showcase the latest version of the 5K and 8K headsets at the House of VR in an exclusive for the country. Henderson says:

“As a contributor to VR 2.0, we are closely working with our partners to bring innovation to the industry and finally give VR enthusiasts and gamers what they have been dreaming of”, he continued.

“VRTO is delighted to continue hard to bring international companies together with local producers, developers and startups,” says Keram Malicki-Sanchez, founder and executive director of VRTO. “We are grateful for the faith Pimax have put in us to handle this special event.”

In addition to the demonstrations of the Pimax 8K series and 5K+ head mounted displays (for the first time in Canada), the evening will feature 4 information packed presentations and we will be joined by Kevin Henderson, Head of US Operations from Pimax who will be making a special trip out to our event to meet the community, crowdfunders, potential partners and most importantly content developers for their technology.

An animated GIF of Pimax Users

We have given some of our speakers advance time with the units so that they can report on their discoveries, musings and advice for building content at this resolution, along with insights about how they are pushing the limits with their own ongoing projects.

We will also be offering a special discount off these headsets only at this event for attendees.

Here is the schedule for the evening. As you can see, it is ambitious and we need everyone’s cooperation to maximize the time.

Event Agenda

7pm | Registration (Name Tag Required)
7:15 | Pimax Demos Open
7:45 – 8:00 pm | Opening Remarks – Stephanie Greenall, Michael Hoang (VRTO) – Kevin Henderson, Head of US Operations from Pimax
8:00 – 8:20 pm | Priam Givord, Designer of Small Wonders, the VR Experience
8:30 – 8:50 pm | Gabriela Kim Passos, Creator of Yumi & Boom
8:50 – 9:00 pm | Break
9:00 – 9:15 pm | Blair Renaud, Creator of Technolust, and Technolust 2
9:20 – 9:35 pm | Joanne-Aśka Popińska, Founder of Tribe of Pan
9: 35 – 10: 00 pm | PIMAX Demonstrations and Networking Continue

Thank you to House of VR, our host for the event and to our innovation partner the Canadian Film Centre / ideaboost.

The event is free of charge, as always, thanks to the support of our sponsors, partners and volunteers. Please be aware that there are only 100 initial spots available for the talks and 5 minute demos (with 5-minute turnover) will be on a first come first serve basis from a sign-up sheet onsite.

All guests must register individually–so do not delay in signing up!

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @VRToronto  for social details leading up to and around the event, and please make sure to sign up for our VR industry newsletter for further details and insights.

Signup for this Meetup Now!
https://www.meetup.com/virtualrealityto/events/257626657/

 

Thank you to our event partners!
House-of-VR CFC ideaboost logo

Update:

Here are some photos from the event! We had a terrific turnout and thank everyone who came and worked so hard on this!

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VRTO 2018 – Canada’s VR and AR Conference Year 3 – Report

Events, ,

Reflections, notes, stats and wrap up on the VRTO 2018 Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo.

Facts:
95 Speakers from the following countries:
Canada, United States, Japan, Spain, Mexico, India, China.

Topics included:
The philosophical origins of experiential design, psychedelics, esoterica, blockchain, cryto assets, visual effects, augmented reality, gestural libraries, artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, robotics, projection mapping, haptics, somatosensory interfaces, location based entertainment (LBE), game design, mental health and VR/AR, volumetric and lightfield capture, ambisonic and spatialized audio, avatars and chatbots, Touch Designer, DepthKit, Unity, Unreal and much more.

Coverage from:

Attendees: 600

Part 1. 
VRTO was designed to assert that art is important. Culture is important. Experimentation is important. Subversion and skepticism are important. Philosophy and creativity, collaboration and open minds and hearts can create enormous fonts of positive energy.

  • In year one we focused on defining a code of ethics for humanistic augmentation and the concern with how they are understood, adopted and exacted

[L to R] Ana Serrano (Canadian Film Centre), Danielle Perszyk (Oscillations), Glenn Cantave (Movers & Shakers), Maryam Sabour, Nyla Innuksuk on a panel “Are VR/AR ready for CHANGE?” photo by Christian Bobak

  • In year two we acknowledged and listened to our progenitors, the pioneers, our elders, attempting to extrapolate decades of existing research and experience upon which foundation we might continue to build.
  • In year three we looked towards possible futures, distant horizons, terra incognita, mysticism and esoterica, new paradigms, and the exhuming of ancient practices that may find new expressions.

VRTO is only successful if it proves to be salt-peter, Occam’s razor, and a portal. If it becomes de rigeur, it is will cede. We will burn it to the ground to enrich the soil that remains.

 

Steve "Spaz" Williams and Dave Cardwell with Keram Malicki-Sanchez at VRTO
VFX Heaven: Dave Cardwell of SPINVFX (King Kong, Lord of the Rings, The Expanse) and Steve “Spaz” Williams (Jurassic Park, The Abyss, Terminator 2, The Mask, Spawn) meet for the first time at VRTO 2018 to talk about the future of  CG and immersive tech.

Part 2. 
We start from where we are. What we are given. But that is not the end, only the beginning. The rest is up to us to create.

On the one hand, we can assure ourselves that the present is unceasingly mutable, and on the other that this unrelenting ocean of tides – ebb and flow – can provide the solace and comfort of familiarity, once we can accept it, and surrender the illusion of permanence or dominion over anything.

“Only that which can change can continue.” 
― James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Part 3.
The show is not the product. It is the catalyst. It takes minimum 365 days + years to build a VRTO schedule. It is a cauldron. The real product emerges in the days, weeks, months and years that follow. No attendance numbers or exhibitor count or media circulation will paint an honest picture in contrast to those effects.

“Gardeners slaughter no animals. They kill nothing. Fruits, seeds, vegetables, nuts, grains, grasses, roots, flowers, herbs, berries-all are collected when they have ripened, and when their collection is in the interest of the garden’s heightened and continued vitality. Harvesting respects a source, leaves it unexploited, suffers it to be as it is.” 
― James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

VRTO Speakers group shot
[​L to R]: Rodrigo Contreras (Trade & Investment Commissioner, Mexico), Irena Cronin (Transformation Group), Ryan Andal (Secret Location), John Bolton (Globacore), Councillor Michael Thompson, Stefan Grambart, Charlie Fink, Stepen Shew (Battleverse), Joanna Popper (HP), Tom Emrich (SuperVentures), me!, Nathan Weir (FORREC), Helen Papagiannis, Sergio Ramirez and Joss Monzon (Virtualware and NMerso), Andrew MacDonald (CreamVR) – photo by Christian Bobak

Here are some treasures, coming out of the event:

FREE RICH MEDIA FOR YOU!

Podcast Episodes From VRTO2018 by Kent Bye – Voices of VR

Official Session Videos from VRTO2018

 

Photos by Christian Bobak

VRTO at DGP Labs at U of T

November 14th, 2017 Meetup – SideFX, Samsung VR and JanusVR’s Vesta

Events, ,

100 VRTO members and some curious University of Toronto students assembled for VRTO’s latest meetup at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology in downtown Toronto. Keram opened the evening and gave out a special $150 discount code for the HumanEyes Vuze camera and announced that submissions to FIVARS 2018 were now open.

He then welcomed to the podium Adam Lipper – head of Music and VR for Samsung Canada who described where Samsung VR has been and where it is going. One of the distinctions is that Samsung VR is no longer exclusively tied to Gear VR but is also a website, like YouTube, in its own right that can be accessed from any device. He also hinted that the platform will soon be offering heatmaps for better understanding of useage of content, among other significant updates.

He then unveiled a new partnership between FIVARS and Samsung VR that will showcase past selectees from the festival and offer another way for audiences to discover content that may otherwise be lost in the clamor for attention.

After a brief recess, VRTO invited to the stage Dr.s Karan Singh and James McCrae, co-founders of JanusVR and its free and hosted offshoot Vesta. An hour long workshop demonstrating the various ways to create, modify and write content for the immersive web platform followed.

Then SideFX rep Robert Magee took the floor to demonstrate how the powerful Houdini engine can be used to procedurally generate objects, environments, characters and effects for Virtual Reality applications, ensuring integrity, consistency and enormous flexibility. This was capped by sharing the free trial option or the annual Indie license for only $199 along with many resources for learning how to use this powerful node based architecture with APIs to hook into your favorite IDE or workflow.

The proceedings were followed with a social at a nearby pub where many fascinating conversations continued the night. Thanks to all who were able to attend or spread the word.