LOS ANGELES — GE and Deluxe VR (www.bydeluxe.com) recently partnered to illustrate how GE’s various businesses cross-pollinate a vast knowledge base to develop new solutions. The interactive GE Store virtual reality experience embodies the notion that GE’s sum is greater than its parts, and that company-wide collaboration benefits customers and investors alike, resulting in better products, services and outcomes.
The experience lets viewers select seemingly disparate GE business units — healthcare, oil & gas, energy connection, transportation, digital, renewable energy, global research center, or aviation — to see the real-world ways in which they collaborate. For instance, combining healthcare with oil & gas transports users to the ocean floor to reveal how GE is using ultrasound technology to improve underwater crude oil pipelines.
“Conveying how the interconnectivity of GE technologies encourages the realization of bigger, more impactful outcomes was an ambitious, complex and somewhat abstract idea,” says Andy Goldberg, chief creative officer of GE. “VR was the best way to bring it to life, and the Deluxe team have been great partners in doing so. Within this VR experience, people are actively transported into different settings and can see the connections being made across our businesses.”
Briefed by Goldberg on the synergies and collaborations comprising the GE Store, Deluxe VR’s creative team set out to identify compelling visuals and interactions that would intersect GE’s divisions and drive the experience.
Teams of artists researched each business unit to flesh out concepts and storylines, modeled the CG assets, built new 3D models based on real-world GE technologies, and modified existing high-res assets from GE to run at the necessary frame rate for VR. To achieve a high level of interactivity, Deluxe VR’s technologists customized the simulation engine specifically for this experience, developed new anti-aliasing tools, and experimented with new hardware and software. Refining the interface was a key focus to ensure that viewers could intuitively navigate the virtual environment.