Microsoft is using the 3D optimization startup it bought last year to give it an in to the “mixed reality” enterprise market.
Simplygon has previously had a heavy skew towards gaming services with technology that allowed developers more freedom over the kind of detail they offered end users. True to the name, Simplygon allowed companies to optimize 3D data and simplify (reduce) polygon counts of 3D files for devices that might not have the compute to handle them in their raw glory.
In the past this has been a much easier solution but it still required a fair amount of leg work from developers. With this new update, the company is aiming to make the experience a lot more automatic than the old method, which left developers building a ton of recipes that they would still have to implement and manage.
Today, the company is announcing some changes that will expand its sights beyond gaming and hook its claws into the enterprise world, specifically the manufacturing space, as it adds support for JT and STEP file formats that are among the most common CAD file types.
The company announced in December, that the company would be integrating Simplygon into its Azure cloud services, so their desire to expand its utility to more customers isn’t a shock. Microsoft is emphasizing that a big focus of this shift is on its mixed reality platform so that files can seamlessly be viewed in the appropriate detail on a HoloLens or a desktop PC or a VR headset.
In a blog post, the company doubled down, saying, “CAD support for Simplygon empowers more industries to painlessly and efficiently bring their existing assets into mixed reality.”