After 76 years of existence, Hewlett-Packard split into two companies in 2015, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and HP Inc., with HP Inc. aiming to tackle the 3D printing industry, among others. Earlier this year, the company’s first major offering in the space was finally unveiled, but the Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D printing platform was just the first in a larger strategy to create a “blended reality” ecosystem.
HP has since announced a bit of news that will bring the company even closer to realizing that vision: the acquisition of 3D scanning company DAVID Vision Systems GmbH. In a blog post, Louis Kim, global head and general manager of immersive computing for HP, wrote, “HP will acquire David’s preeminent scanning, stitching and fusing solution that results in radical improvements in scan quality. David provides industry-leading 3D scanning technology and solutions with scan algorithms and automated calibration methods. This is an essential ingredient to seamlessly blend the physical and virtual worlds and a core value proposition of Sprout, through which HP will reach a broad range of industry segments, including education, healthcare, design and research.”
DAVID was established in 2009 as the result of a spin-off from the Institute for Robotics and Process Control at TU-Braunschweig, Germany’s oldest university of technology. The company has since become popular for its relatively low-cost structured light 3D scanners.
By purchasing the German 3D scanning company, HP will be able to build toward its vision of a “blended reality,” in which the digital and physical worlds work together seamlessly and technology operates in the background of our everyday lives.
In terms of 3D scanning and 3D printing, this ecosystem can best be demonstrated with the HP Sprout, a computing platform that consists of a touch-screen monitor with built-in 3D scanner and a perpendicular touch-screen mat, which acts as a scan bed for physical objects. Items placed on this mat can be digitized by the 3D scanner and manipulated on the computer before being 3D printed using something like an MJF 3D printer.
HP will bring both David’s technology and its team on board, carrying with it extensive experience in the 3D scanning field. As a result, HP may be able to significantly bolster the Sprout platform and reinforce the blended reality ecosystem. This will also give HP in-house 3D scanning technology, so that the company will not have to rely on outside systems like RealSense from Intel.
HP is not the only company working toward a tech ecosystem in which the digital and physical worlds merge. Autodesk has its own version of the concept it calls “reality computing,” while Microsoft associates the tech surrounding the HoloLens augmented reality headset with “mixed reality,” a term that is the standard in academia. Google and Apple may not have adopted terms for the concept quite yet, but both giants are developing mixed-reality devices, evidence that an entirely mixed reality may not be far off.