Paracosma Inc
A Leading AR/VR Solutions Provider
In conversation with Ken Ehrhart, Founder & CEO of Paracosma Inc, Innovative Zone Magazine brings to you the world of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, and how Paracosma is making its mark in it.
PLEASE SHINE SOME LIGHT ON THE COMPANY PROFILE AND SERVICES OF PARACOSMA INC
Paracosma is an AR/VR Solutions Provider founded in 2016. We offer AR/VR development services either on an outsourced project basis or through insourced ‘Developer as a Service’ (DaaS) teams that embed our experts with our clients. We also offer 3D content creation services, ranging from high-volume, photorealistic ‘Modelling as a Service’ (MaaS) 3D model creation to virtual film production and synthetic image creation. Paracosma has over one hundred developers and artists across our US headquarters in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area, our technology and sales office in Tokyo, Japan, and development centre in Kathmandu, Nepal.
WHAT IS PARACOSMA’S IDEALISTIC VISION, MISSION AND CORE VALUES?
“Making Augmented and Virtual Reality as good as Reality is not enough; Our Vision is to make Augmented and Virtual Realities better than Reality; Our Mission is to make Reality better through Augmented and Virtual Reality.”
This incorporates three key beliefs. First, AR/VR gets really interesting when we can pass the “Turing Test” for AR/VR, where you cannot tell the difference between real and virtual content and worlds. Second, the magic of AR/VR is that you can do things that are not possible in real life, because they are too expensive, dangerous or rare. And third, that the world has the potential to massively benefit from AR/VR whether in health and medicine, social causes, or quality of life areas. In this last regard, Paracosma is a founder with VRVoice of the VR for Good Conference which was held annually for four years.
DO YOU THINK VR SHOULD SIMULATE REALITY ON EVERY LEVEL?
I would love to see Paracosma producing virtual content that is indistinguishable from real life. Unfortunately, the hardware is not yet powerful enough to have ‘retina displays’, within which the display is so high quality that it begins to approach the quality of what a human eye experiences. Furthermore, the processing and graphics capability cannot yet handle real-time rendering of photorealistic worlds.
Beyond that, we will have to handle sound, touch, smell, taste, movement, etc. Yet, despite my wish for photorealism, the human mind is very good at filling in the gaps and establishing “presence” where you feel immersed and believe worlds are real, even when they are relatively rudimentary.
And, significantly, we have seen cases where non-realistic experiences are more effective. For example, in the case of VR therapy for veterans, some patients opened up and shared more with non-realistic avatars than they did with human therapists. Also, we have heard from some users with social anxiety that a more cartoony world and avatars allows them to feel more comfortable than more realistic environments that can trigger anxiety. So, clearly there are opportunities for both realistic and ‘fantasy’ environments in VR.
WHAT STRATEGIES HAVE YOU PLANNED TO REDUCE PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE TOWARDS VR OR AR PRODUCTS?
From 2016 onward we have shared AR/VR demos with thousands of users. In most cases, the experiences exceeded people’s expectations, and they expressed an enthusiasm for the technology. That said, in the last half of 2021, we spoke with many enterprise companies who expressed resistance to VR headsets and a preference
for 3D experiences in a flat-screen.
This was due to the pandemic fears of headset sharing and the cost of headset purchases in large numbers. Incorporating that feedback, we have been working to deliver cross-platform experiences that can be viewed in VR as well as through browsers on other devices. Both these concerns will decrease as headset costs decline and purchasers recognize the value of headset ownership and RoI.
WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON PHOTOREALISM?
Photorealism is absolutely crucial to several of Paracosma’s fastest-growing product offerings. In the case of 3D modelling, our largest clients are using photorealistic models to replace studio photography with renderings of 3D models. In this use case, the model renderings must be 100% photorealistic.
In the case of virtual movie production, the process is to seamlessly blend virtual 3D content and environments with live real human actors, which demands that actors and virtual sets and props be perfectly matched in terms of realism. Similarly, in the case of generating hundreds of thousands of synthetic images to train machine learning systems, the synthetic photos must closely match real organic photos in clarity and content, because clients need to train the systems to recognize real images. Unfortunately, as noted above, performance does not yet allow photorealistic VR experiences.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST SATISFYING ASPECT OF THIS VENTURE?
One very satisfying aspect of Paracosma is that it blends hard technology and art in a rare balance. This combines my earliest interest in art as a vocation and later focus on technology as a profession. Looking more philosophically, Paracosma is what Japanese would call my Ikigai, or for me a perfect overlap of Profession, Vocation, Mission and Passion. In other words, what I am good at, what the world needs, what I love and what I can be paid for.
WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON INNOVATION? HOW DOES PARACOSMA STAY IN TUNE WITH IT?
Innovation is at the core of AR/VR and the broader transition from 2D to 3D computing that is currently underway. Like the prior transitions from text-based bulletin boards to html-based web pages; and analog audio to digital video; and standalone applications to the cloud; and PCs to mobile; computing is now shifting from 2D to 3D.
This is spurring innovation across the board from self-driving cars to 3D printing and even deep-fake videos. AR/VR is both enabled by this transition and leading it. In any such vast transformation, there is massive opportunity to innovate and create new 3D approaches to disrupt the old 2D legacy systems.
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE TECH ADVANCEMENTS IN THE INDUSTRY WILL LEAD TO?
Each of the technology shifts noted above-created opportunities for new market-dominating companies, such as Google, Netflix, Salesforce, and Apple. Similarly, there will be globally leading companies created and propelled by the 2D to 3D transition.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY IS THE BEST FIT FOR YOUR UPCOMING PROJECTS?
Because of Paracosma’s scale, we can invest in teams across multiple platforms. For example, in AR, we can develop for HoloLens, Magic Leap, Nreal, Jio, ARKit, ARCore, and other platforms. Similarly, with VR we can use Meta Quest, HTC, HP, Sony, WebXR and other alternatives. From that perspective, we can always choose the best technology for our clients’ needs.
TELL US ABOUT THE LEADERSHIP TEAM OF PARACOSMA.
Paracosma has been fortunate to attract a strong team of experts. I have been a venture capitalist for 22 years and have had a chance to help start many great companies. James Ehrhart is a 27-year veteran of Accenture where he led teams totalling 18,000 developers.Takeyuki Ogura is a renowned game developer and entrepreneur from Japan. Jim Lorentz has built successful retail commerce and enterprise training businesses before focusing on the significance of AR/VR to those and other markets.
John Goodale helped found Unity’s Asia operations. Sarose TuiTui, our Art Director, has built one of the best 3D art teams in the business and is an immensely talented artist. Sheetal Maharjan is a brilliant self-taught game designer who runs our game and simulation department. We have over one hundred folks who contribute each day to our success.
HOW HAS YOUR WORK CULTURE IMPACTED YOUR GROWTH THUS FAR?
From our inception, with teams in multiple locations, Paracosma has had a strong culture of self-direction and responsibility across our teams. As a result, we have sought and nurtured employees who could independently manage not only their own tasks but as we grew could take on more responsibility to oversee the work of junior employees. Over time, our senior developers and artists also became team leaders and managers. This allows new hires to both be mentored by experienced employees and to see a path for their own career advancement as the organisation grows.
PLEASE HIGHLIGHT THE ACHIEVEMENTS AND ACCOLADES ATTAINED BY YOUR COMPANY SO FAR.
Paracosma has been recognized as a “Most Innovative AR/ VR Solutions Provider”, a “Most Trustworthy…”, “Most Reliable…”, “Fastest Growing…”, “Most Disruptive…” and so on. To be recognized in 2021 and 2022 as a “Top 5 AR/VR Solutions Provider’’ is the culmination of a lot of hard work, as we have advanced from “20 Most Promising AR/VR Solution Provider” in 2018; to “10 Best AR/VR Solution Providers to Watch” in 2019; to “World’s 10 Best AR VR Solutions Providers” in 2020; and finally “World’s Top 5 AR/VR Solution Providers” beginning in 2021 and continuing this year.
WHERE DO YOU ENVISION YOUR COMPANY IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS?
Our long-term goal has consistently been to be one of the world’s best and largest, pure-play, stand-alone AR/VR Solutions Providers. With over 100 employees and 88% of revenue coming from repeat clients we are doing well so far.
SHARE SOME WORDS OF WISDOM THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONVEY TO THE ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS AND THE READERS OF OUR MAGAZINE.
Surround yourself with people who are smarter and more capable than yourself. You cannot change the world or build a sustainable business alone. Singular vision, passion and hard work are crucial, but not sufficient ingredients for success. Remember that technology excellence must be paired with operational excellence and excellent sales and support.
Must Read:-
- Top 10 pharma companies in the world
- Top 10 company of India 2021
- Top 10 logistic Companies in India 2021
- Top 10 automobile companies in India 2021
- Top 10 fastest growing industries in the world 2021
- Top 10 most charitable person in the world 2021
- Top 10 logistic Companies in India – 2021
- Top 10 Company in the Corporate World
- Top 5 Most Fuel Efficient Car In India
- Start Small and go Big: Low-Investment Business Ideas 2021
- Top 10 Electrical Company in India 2021
