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BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 7 POST SEPTEMBER 2018 HP PREMIERES MARS VR EXPERIENCE AT SIGGRAPH PALO ALTO, CA — HP unveiled a groundbreaking virtual reality (VR) simulation of what life on Mars could look like for a human population of one million people at this year's SIGGRAPH show in Vancouver. The HP Mars Home Planet program, led by HP and Nvidia, is the culmination of a year-long engagement with the creative community to simulate life on the red planet. The program attracted over 90,000 creative pro- fessionals, architects, engineers and students span- ning more than 150 countries. The most innovative ideas were brought to life through a VR experience created by Technicolor that premiered at SIGGRAPH. "The ultimate power for fully-immersive VR experiences comes from the creative community and the computing process delivered by HP and our partners," says Xavier Garcia, VP and GM. "HP's technology leadership, rich history of product inno- vation and understanding of the creative workflow is brining amazing ideas to life." The HP Mars Home Planet VR experience takes users through a Martian Community Onboarding Center, showing innovations in areas such as archi- tecture, engineering and transportation that enable humans to make the leap to Mars. Technicolor developed the stunning visuals for the experience in Epic's Unreal Engine, resulting in the first ever six-de- grees-of-freedom VR piece built for motion-enabled chairs, using HP Windows Mixed Reality headsets. The environments and key assets from the VR expe- rience will be released back to the creative commu- nity through an Unreal Engine download this fall. Universities and schools worldwide also took on the universe-changing effort of reinventing, designing and experiencing life in an urban area of Mars Valley in VR. Supported by HP technology and leaders in higher education, these institutions created teams as part of the Education League for HP Mars Home Planet. Ten universities in Europe and two universities in Australia competed in the project, with Japan conducting a separate contest with 110 submissions — judged separately — to select win- ners who submitted entries to HP Mars Home Planet. For more information on HP Mars Home Planet, visit www.hpmarshomeplanet.com. More than a dozen educational institutions made contributions. Assets will be released to the creative community this fall. HP Windows Mixed Reality headsets help deliver the experience.