Join us for the inaugural Portland Virtual Reality Meetup!

This is an important moment in the history of virtual reality. For decades VR has been available only to high-budget research laboratories. But that is changing quickly. True immersive VR is finally making its way into the hands-and homes-of early adopters. Come and meet fellow VR enthusiasts, experimenters, and developers, and let's help each other explore this fascinating new frontier together.

We expect to have several speakers, with plenty of time for demos, show and tell, etc.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Kent Bye - (Portland Virtual Reality Organizer) Introduction and vision for Portland Virtual Reality
• MORE SPEAKERS TBD

If you have a project that you would like to share with the group, or a topic you would like to speak about, please contact Kent Bye.

If you have an Oculus Rift or have any other interesting VR hardware or software to share, please consider bringing it along for the demo and show and tell portion of the event.

Doors open at 6:30PM, speakers start at 7:00.

DESIGNSPEAKS exists to explore design within the multidisciplinary: architecture, brand, communications, experience, film, fashion, graphic, industrial. We establish an interface within the context of real life, supporting the most compelling regional voices in design, and talk through to the heart of the practice.

PEAK PERFORMANCE Data, Design, and Driving the Future October 8, 2015 7 to 9 pm / 52 Limited Moderated by Tony Thacker

Tony Thacker is a longtime auto industry authority, author and book publisher based in Los Angeles. Most recently, Tony was Executive Director of the World of Speed, an educational motorsports-themed museum, in Wilsonville. He served as executive director of the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona and the marketing director for the famed SO-CAL Speed Shop for 10 years.

Led by the enigmatic Tony Thacker, consider this a glimpse into a not-so-distant future of driverless cars negotiating rush hour traffic and carless drivers using augmented reality.

We’ll trace the path of Salem-based Nick McMillen from passionate video gamer to professional racecar driver and learn how the virtual and augmented training environments being pioneered by Keith Maher in Hillsboro give drivers like McMillen an edge on the track.

Then we'll take on engineering feats from self-driving trucks to land speed motorcycle design with Daimler Trucks North America's former vehicle dynamics manager Matt Markstaller and contemplate the future of automotive design with Aaron Pizzuti, a former design manager at Chrysler. From Pikes Peak to peak performance, where is technology taking us and who exactly is in the driver's seat?

Doors open at 6 pm. Come early for food, drinks and virtual reality demos. Your ticket includes the presentation, dinner, hosted bar, and a limited edition poster.

With Panelists:

Keith Maher is a leading authority in automotive simulation - from programming to podiums, he provides custom simulation solutions to automotive problems. With 22 years in high technology and a motorsports obsession, he founded Maher Solutions, LLC to help people in the automotive industry achieve their goals through simulation.

Matt Markstaller is a mechanical engineer who has worked in various capacities for Daimler Trucks North America for 27 years. He designed and built numerous prototype vehicles including Pikes Peak Hill Climb trucks, test facilities, and wind tunnels. By night, he designs and builds vehicles from open road racers to Bonneville record streamliners.

Nick McMillen is a professional racing driver for Nissan. Born in Salem, he took an unconventional path to professional driving by winning the 2013 GT Academy, an international virtual-to-reality contest that allows the best Gran Turismo players to compete for the opportunity to become professional drivers. He won the Dubai 24 and Silverstone in 2014.

Aaron Pizzuti is a designer specializing in automotive, footwear and consumer product design and creative direction. Following a life long passion for both automobiles and art, he spent nine years at Chrysler as design manager and senior product designer. He's currently Creative Director at Under Armour in Portland.

Nike Tech Talks - October 15

Clear your calendar! Nike Consumer Digital Tech is hosting tech talks for the PDX tech community on October 15th. We're bringing great speakers to the Nike campus and there will be time to network and enjoy snacks and drinks.

How Augmented Reality Will Change Your Life, Relationships, and the Planet

Todd Revolt / Director of Strategic Alliances, Meta / @sfrevo

Augmented Reality opens new opportunities beyond gaming and entertainment. People are only beginning to explore how practical applications of augmented reality in science, medicine, engineering, commerce and education can improve people’s lives in far reaching ways. Due to the broad impact of applications, augmented reality is projected to eclipse virtual reality and become a $120 billion industry over the next five years. This talk touches on the types of applications that will drive the proliferation of AR.

Todd Revolt is the head of Strategic Alliances at Meta. He has more than 20 years experience in the software industry. He built global channels at Zendesk, Atlassian, Lithium, and Zero G. At each, he was responsible for overseeing a variety of activities including marketing, sales, new business development, and global expansion. Todd has entertained, and educated audiences at several major conferences, and events including Wearable Technology Show, We are Wearables, MindCET Isreal, Wearable Tech Expo Japan, and Paris Descartes University.

The Virtual Reality Revolution: The Future of Immersive Technology

Kent Bye / Voices of VR Podcast / @kentbye

Virtual Reality is a completely new communications medium that has the potential to radically change everything from gaming, entertainment, education, health care, architecture, marketing, and social telepresence applications. The consumer launch of VR is just around the corner, and Kent Bye has conducted over 250 Voices of VR podcast interviews with the leading VR developers and academics. Kent will talk about the current state of virtual reality, some of the exciting applications in different fields, some of the current limitations of VR, what is on the horizon, as well as insights into the ultimate potential of virtual reality. He will also have some virtual reality gear on hand that you will be able to try.

Kent Bye is the host of the daily Voices of VR podcast and the co-founder of the Portland Virtual Reality Meetup. The Voices of VR podcast has featured over 200 of the pioneering game developers, enthusiasts and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual reality. Kent has been traveling to the top VR gatherings around world since May 2014 in order to capture a diverse range of VR perspectives and insights from the leading pioneers of VR. He’s also a VR developer creating a variety of different immersive educational experiences.

RSVP and learn more at: https://niketechtalks-oct2015.splashthat.com!

We’ve put together a fantastic evening. You’ll enjoy fascinating presentations on surgical, educational and manufacturing applications for VR & AR, and learn how one Oregon studio creates the training simulations that help our Navy prepare for missile attacks. This mental feast will be followed by a gourmet dinner from renowned Chef John Gorham and exciting conversation games designed by Rose City Games. You should leave full of new information, good food, and hopefully brimming with exciting ideas for how virtual and mixed reality can apply to your life and work.

We hope you’ll join Oregon’s video game developers, elected officials, journalists and leadership from the industries outlined above as we learn why Oregon is uniquely positioned to become one of the best gamification, VR and AR development markets in the world.

Moderated by Voices of VR Podcast's Kent Bye, this panel will bring together 360 degree videographers, VR technologists and experience designers to examine the state of user experience in virtual reality, the skills needed to design 360 degree experiences, the challenges of this new medium, and the joys of working inside new realities.

Start your Friday right with hand pies from Pacific Pie Co. and Portland Brewing beer, and then join the conversation with some of the area's brightest minds working in experience design and virtual reality.

The Panel

Matt Rowell—Co-Founder 360 Labs @360labs

Gavin Farrell—Co-Founder Panogs @panogs

Gabe Paez—Founder Wild @builtbywild

Teressa Chizeck—Interaction Designer, Intel

The Schedule

5-5:30 eating, networking, demos 5:45-7 panel discussion 7-7:30 questions, networking

Once upon a time, interaction was three-dimensional and physical— think knobs, buttons and dials. In the last decade or so, we've put touchscreens on nearly everything, digitizing interactions and relegating them to two-dimensional screen space and the purview of interaction and graphic designers.

We are about to undergo another paradigm change in computing and will need to shift expectations around design, materiality and experience. Breaking away from screen-based interactions is not going to be easy, but it will be an opportunity for designers of different disciplines to collaborate in a new and immersive space.

As a young girl, Alysha Naples wanted to be an astronaut, a dinosaur or a Solid Gold dancer. Instead, she studied graphic design, moved to San Francisco (Method, Blurb and HP Labs) and became obsessed with interaction and experience. Until recently, she was Magic Leap’s Senior Director of User Experience and Interaction, a position which felt a lot like she’s was going back to kindergarten and getting a PhD at the same time.

Join us for Beyond the Screen. August 31 at Instrument HQ. Doors open at 5:30pm, talk starts at 6:00pm.

This meetup gives you two sneak peeks, one IRL and one in VR. 

First, get an early look at CENTRL Office's new eastside location. Second, get an early look at Vectorspace VR.

What's Vectorspace VR?

"VectorSpace VR specializes in building large scale,  immersive VR exhibits that streamline a myriad of technologies, including: IR motion tracking, Oculus Rift and mini backpack PC’s, to create unprecedented experiences.  

"We have just installed our first VR system in Chicago for a large haunted house attraction company and look forward to exhibiting this content for Portland’s local tech community." 

As always, refreshments will be graciously provided by our hosts at CENTRL Office.

Recent advancements in mixed, augmented, and virtual reality ("MR", "AR", and "VR" respectively) have led to increased interest in re-examining their merit in K-12 and higher education.

What might the role of VR/AR/MR be in the classroom of tomorrow? How could these technologies be used for teaching and learning? Are they just a different way to do the same thing? Or, do they re-define and enable new forms of instruction and pedagogy that were never before possible?

These are just some of the questions we will explore, discuss, and practice with at the next PDXedTech meetup, an event of the NW Education Cluster. Whether as a tool for classroom management, data analysis, collaboration, or instruction, these technologies have a promising—though uncharted—future in education.

This is your chance for hands-on practice and experimentation with a variety of devices and contribute your ideas to the discussion.

Game On is the Oregon Game Organization (OGO)'s annual celebration of games and new technology. This year, OGO and TAO have teamed up to bring you several presentations on Oregon games, where games are meeting enterprise, and a wide array interactive gaming stations and demos showcasing regional companies and their work.

Our evening will begin with demos, drinks & hors d’oeuvres, followed by several local companies sharing their current work and what is on the horizon for gaming. We will wrap up the evening by sharing additional hand-picked demos to educate and entertain all attendees of Game On.

The world of gaming is evolving rapidly. Games are a strong and ongoing contributor to job creation and the state’s economy, and the rapidly expanding AR & VR markets offer opportunities for us to use gaming skill sets to solve real world problems. Join business and creative leaders, policy makers and educators on the evening of March 9th to see what where we’ve been and what’s coming next.

More details on speakers and tickets are here: https://www.techoregon.org/events/game

This summit explores the social ramifications, opportunities, and trajectories of these new immersive technologies through the lens of art, research, and design. It brings together artists, technologists, designers, and social thinkers for a day of talks, demonstrations, and experiences. It is intended to break open the conversation and tease out distinctions amongst these various realities and how these intersect and mesh with the body social.

Price:

FREE but tickets are limited. Register at Brown Paper Tickets

Agenda

• 9:30-10:30a Coffee + pastries + demos
• 10:30-11:45a session 1
  • Tawny Schlieski - Challenge + Importance of Diversity in VR
  • Stephanie Mendoza - Shapeshifter Culture
  • Donna Davis - Diversity Access Gaps and Benefits for Work
  • Jamie Sherman - VR for diversity: working with NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism
• 11:45-1:00p lunch (independent recommend Pine St Mkt - nearby food court)
• 1:00-2:15p session 2
  • Matt Henderson - VR social experiments and the emerging Metafesto
  • Jeremy Rotsztain - Mantissa: an historic cinema project
  • David Reuter - Site specific VR 3d worlds and headsets
  • Theo Downes-LeGuin - Exhibition design for new technologies
• 2:30-4:00p session 3
  • Amy Hillman - Creating Shared Holographic Experiences
  • John Sherry - Intel Research on immersive experiences
  • Reese Bowes - Consilience: presence and affordance in art
  • U of O Art and Technology: advanced student projects
• 4:00-5:30p Demos, hors d'oeuvres, and schmoozing
• 5:30-6:30p Interactive performance - harmonic laboratory (http://harmoniclab.org/intermedia/)

This month we are talking about the many ways we can get data from the real world into our virtual environments. LIDAR, infrared, photogrammetry, point cloud, mesh. What does it all mean? What works or doesn't? What's easy and what's a pain in the ass? We've got demos and talks planned, but bring your questions, bring your scanning toys. Participation is welcome.

Demo: Jonah Hawk and Ben Dienes https://www.zgf.com will be showing a site scanned into room-scale VR. They are ready to discuss getting drone licensing the process of getting drone photography into VR.

Presentation: Jon Ellinger, certified photogrammetrist, on behalf of BD aerial, will be walking us through the available technology. What are he options and what are the tools. Paul Tice http://www.topa3d.com will dig into the processes and and using them in some example projects. Schedule:

5:30 - Doors open, network, light snacks and drinks provided by ZGF. 6:00 - Presentations 7:00 - Demos and networking 8:00 - Go home

Come join us for our monthly Portland VR Meetups where we explore the growing VR/AR/MR/XR industry and local community.

This month we are exploring how AR/VR will disrupt the 30 trillion dollar a year global industries of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction. More details to come soon!

We will also have food, drinks, AR/VR demos, and the best community networking in town.

This event WILL SELL OUT!

https://impactflow.com/event/disrupting-a-30-trillion-dollar-industry-arvr-for-aec-3493

Agenda

5:30pm - Doors Open / Food / Drinks / Demos / Networking

7:00pm - Event Begins!

• Quick Community Announcements (20 seconds/ea)

More speakers to be announced soon!

Logan Smith

AEC VR 101: What’s possible, and what’s so easy you should be doing it yesterday.

It’s obvious why the building industry was one of the first to embrace virtual reality for enterprise. The experience of space, scale, light, and texture of a design are communicated better than any 2D rendering.

But VR for architects isn’t just renderings on steroids. The VR tools for verification and collaboration are changing the industry and the built environment for the better. We will take a look at some of the ways architects and contractors have already started using virtual reality, what it takes to get started, and what to watch for just around the corner.

Logan is a co-founder of Bevel, a company providing VR consulting and development for the AEC industry. He runs the Portland AEC VR meetup group. Before moving full time into virtual reality, Logan practiced as a licensed architect and CPHC.

Big thanks to our Sponsors who help make this event happen:

New Relic offers a performance management solution enabling developers to diagnose and fix application performance problems in real time. New Relic is hiring!! https://newrelic.com/about/culture

PANOGS is a Portland based full-service virtual reality (VR) agency specializing in creating immersive and gigapixel hyper-resolution experiences from some of the tallest structures and most inaccessible places on earth. PANOGS will be co-presenting their aerial 360 video reel on the HTC Vive with their Aerial Partner VR Drones. www.panogs.com

The Khronos Group was founded in 2000 to provide a structure for key industry players to cooperate in the creation of open standards that deliver on the promise of cross-platform technology. Today, Khronos is a not for profit, member-funded consortium dedicated to the creation of royalty-free open standards for graphics, parallel computing, vision processing, and dynamic media. www.Khronos.org

PERKINS COIE represents market leaders in AR and VR technology, products, services and content. We assist our clients in raising capital for new ventures, protecting intellectual property, distribution, licensing, regulatory compliance and a wide variety of other legal services. Learn more.

Are you interested in sponsoring, demoing, or volunteering? Then email [email protected] to learn more about opportunities.

If the cost of our tickets($5-20) is a prohibiting factor from your attendance, please email Joshua to ask about scholarship opportunities.

Tickets Will Sell Out: https://impactflow.com/event/disrupting-a-30-trillion-dollar-industry-arvr-for-aec-3493

An educational panel covering development, design, application, business use, and usability of mixed reality (Augmented and Virtual Reality) technology. Walk away with valuable insight from leaders in the emerging tech space, and learn how to apply this new technology in productive and functional ways for your business. With advances in technology, such as AR and VR, Mixed Reality is quickly being “hyped” up to become the next big technological milestone. From cardboard VR headsets, to your neighbors playing PokemonGo, we’ve all been exposed to some form of Mixed Reality. While these iterations are very playful, there’s a reason we’re seeing major investment in Mixed Reality. Our panelists will provide interesting insight into the current world of Mixed Reality, when it’s a fit for your brand and when it’s not, the impact on your business and service offerings, what core use-case is best for you, how to start exploring Mixed Reality, and the potential future of this technology.

featuring DevelopmentNow, Fiction, Giant Astronaut, and PixelPool

Immersive technology like augmented and virtual reality is creating a rapidly growing new industry. A report from Tech Trends’ Editor-in-chief, Alice Bonsaio cites this fast growing sector estimated to be $162B by 2020! Far beyond gaming and entertainment, there is potential for this technology to disrupt everything from healthcare and architecture to changing the way we maintain global supply chain. Join us for an engaging evening of conversation with early startup founders and those that support them, as we explore the experience of being on the ground floor of this new immersive reality.

The evening will start with a presentation from Russell Ladson, the Founder of Drop, a ViveX company. Russell will then be joined by two to three other local startup founders in the immersive tech space. We will have a candid conversation about their experiences as founders in the new field, the current state of this technology and where it is headed, along with Q&A from the audience. It will be an insightful and engaging panel.

Design Reality’s Immersed Conference is scheduled for April 22nd-23rd at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). The two-day AR/VR conference will explore the current state of the Immersive Technologies and their impact on how we work, live, learn, heal, and consume. Design Reality builds on its monthly premier immersive tech event series to produce a conference offering a multitude of insights and opportunities.

See the full list of speakers, panels, and workshop: https://reality.design/immersed-conference-2018/

The two-day AR/VR conference will explores the current state of the Immersive Technologies and their impact on how we work, live, learn, heal, and consume. Design Reality builds on its monthly premier immersive tech event series to produce a conference offering a multitude of insights and opportunities. Who should attend? - Business Professionals in all industries - Entrepreneurs, Investors and Influencers - Designers, Developers and Tech enthusiasts - Storytellers and creatives

Why should you attend?

Attendees will benefit from insightful takeaways delivered through educational workshops, expert speaker presentations, use cases for various verticals, and demonstrations during the expo. Attendees will have ample opportunity to::

Collaborate - meet innovators, entrepreneurs and thought-leaders 
Experience - new immersive technology, expo demonstrations
Network - with multi-industry professionals, experts and thought-leaders
Learn - new perspectives and how to apply it to your professional path. 

Topics to be explored include:: - The overall state of the AR/VR industry - Medical and Mental Health Applications for Immersive Tech - Architecture, Engineering, and Construction - Navigating Legal Matters for the AR/VR Industry - 360 Film and Post Production

Voice of VR's Kent Bye will be giving the opening Keynote on Monday Morning!

Learn more and grab tickets at: https://reality.design/immersed-conference-2018/

Join Nike Digital for the next event in our Nike Tech Talks series on Thurs., May 17 from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. at the Nike Decathlon Club Cafe.

Stephanie Hulburt, Graphics Engineer & Co-Founder of Binomial, will give a talk on Performance in VR & Emerging Tech.

Enjoy snacks and beverages as you network with fellow tech enthusiasts from Nike and beyond. Please feel free to invite friends and colleagues to attend this event.

CyborgCamps are small, in-depth unconferences about the future of the relationship between humans and technology. Attendees discuss a variety of topics such as the futures of identity, privacy, surveillance, hardware to wetware, drones, 3D printing, cyberpunk, human augmentation, constructed reality, the second self, ethics, robot rights, sexuality, urban design, and anthropology. Topics are discussed the morning of the conference and scheduled into the conference grid by attendees themselves, making it a DIY conference experience.

In addition to the above topics, the following has been discussed at CyborgCamps around the world: cyborgs, wearables, prosthetics, sensors, control systems, assistive tech, transcendence, transhumanism, technological singularity, artificial intelligence, intelligence amplification, utopia / distopia / weird topia, identity, quantified self, exocortex, ubicomp, robots, sensory augmentation, steam punk, philosophy, ethics, intelligence, the borg, hackerspaces, telepresence, science fiction, DIY, cryonics, cybernetics, open source, nanotech, augmented reality, brain-computer interface, artificial life, functional electrical stimulation, and neural science. Each CyborgCamp has its own mix of topics created by what the attendees want to discuss. All CyborgCamps follow a Code of Conduct.

Join the Wacom Inkathon to build new or existing apps that unlock digital ink for your users. Wacom is calling on developers, designers and all other hackers to build great apps that enable digital ink for their users.

Integrate the Wacom's digital ink solution, the WILL SDK, into an existing app OR a new application to compete for the $15,000+ prizepool. The three challenge tracks are: Ink for Education, Extended Reality (VR/AR), and Blank Canvas (open challenge, not category-specific).

Presented by The Wild and Torch, in partnership with 52 Limited.

Extended reality (XR), the spectrum of immersive content including AR, MR, and VR, is revolutionizing workflows and changing how business gets done. XR tools, experiences, and solutions are already transforming nearly every industry—from architecture to healthcare to entertainment. If you’re not using this technology, your competitor soon will, so it’s important to understand this new tech landscape and how it relates to your business and your bottom line.

XR Foundations for Business is for professionals who want to learn more about XR, how it’s used in a professional context both internally and externally, and how to get started using these new technologies.

Join leaders from Torch and The Wild for an interactive workshop that gives you a clear understanding of how XR may impact your work while gathering some tools to help you craft your own immersive XR strategy.

Save $20 with early bird prices!

Check out the event site for full details.

*Please register on our Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Free-Range-Developers/events/268076942/

We're excited to announce that Free Range Developers has hit their one year anniversary and we have over 280 members in our community. That is really inspiring stuff and We can't thank you enough with the FRD crew that has grown from 1 to 3. We'd like to take some time during this event to give a brief overview of the last year and were we plan to go in 2020. We will also have some announcements to make about up coming events! Come celebrate a year of Free Range Developers with us and network with like minded creatives!

Free Range Developers invites you to join us at the Wacom Experience Center for a night of networking, drinks and appetizers. . Our event is tailored to people who are looking to learn more about Augmented and Virtual reality though we cover many different topics and skill sets and encourage all types of people to join our conversations. Games, immersive tech, web development or graphics. whatever your calling is, we’re just as excited to learn about it as you are sharing it.

We encourage all skill levels of any background to come and chat with us!

Snacks, Drinks and Location Provided by: Wacom

Join us on discord https://discord.gg/jgWh7hF Twitter @FreeRangeDevPDX Purchase a shirt at https://www.teepublic.com/user/freerangedevpdx Or learn more at FreeRangeDevs.org

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

*Please register on our MeetUp page: https://www.meetup.com/Free-Range-Developers/events/269000396/

Free Range Developers is excited to invite Valentin Lucas to talk about his experience in 2D animation!

Valentin’s career has been blossoming for 6 years and most recently he found himself working at Laika here in Hillsboro, OR. Coming from south France, He studied animation in Paris. He started improving his craft and began teaching animation and story boarding himself. He moved to Spain to work on the Netflix film “Klaus” as a 2D animator. Valentin is currently working as a 2D character artist for the aforementioned Laika.

Valentin is excited to share his 2D experience with our meetup and enlighten fellow artist on the tips and tricks he picked up on for a successful career in animation.

Valentin will walk us through his experience working on Klaus, and present us with a breakdown of the shots he worked on. Going over some of the key aspects of his work. Taking time to touch on the important principles he learned during his 1st year as an animator and showing off some exercise that kept him fresh as a 2D artist/animator. He will give us a quick overview of the 3 short films he had a hand in creating and talk about the challenges during those projects and wrapping it up with an overview of the last 6 years of his career and what got him where he is today as an artist and animator!

Snacks, Drinks and Location Provided by Wacom

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Everyone needs hobbies. And if you follow PIE mentor Nick Lambert on Instagram, you'll see that the pandemic has been a good time for him to reboot a few of them: music, cooking, ridiculous short films… we all deal with this stuff differently.

We're happy to have Nick take moment away from his more creative efforts to join us for an "Ask Me Anything" session. Being a former startup founder, startup accelerator manager, and professional musician — and currently Customer Success Manager at local VR/AR/XR startup The Wild — you've got a wide range of topics at our disposal.

So please register to attend and start adding — and upvoting — the questions we'll be asking.

RSVP: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/founder-nick-lambert-ama/

Welcome!

This is our first Meetup! of SW Washington XR. You want to be more connected with the happenings of AR/VR/MR, this is the place for you.

You can be a seasoned veteran or want to see what all the hoopla is about. Please join us!

We will be at the Evergreen Pub - https://www.brotherscascadiabrewing.com/evergreen-pub

108 W. Evergreen Vancouver, WA 98660 6pm - 8pm

We will have Real Wear speakers out to talk about their amazing products. Along with Meta Quest 3 headsets out for demo and beer.

All people that attend will also get Udemy's course on Mixed Reality for free.

If you have been working on something, want to talk VR, or just hang out, we would love to have you!