Siduri Winery Serves Up Holographic Augmented Reality Experience

By AIT News Desk On Jul 29, 2020

Collaborating with Rock Paper Reality, Siduri unveils holographic experience leveraging Web AR and Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios Technology

Critically-acclaimed Pinot Noir specialist, Siduri, announces a first-of-its-kind photorealistic holographic Web AR (Augmented Reality) experience that brings compelling visual storytelling to the consumer goods industry. In collaboration with Rock Paper Reality, an augmented reality design firm, this disruptive technology allows Siduri to easily engage and educate consumers in a new way, bringing to life the winery’s ethos – that serious wine and serious fun aren’t mutually exclusive.

The Siduri Holographic Experience, built with Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Capture Studios technology, in which Siduri Founder Adam Leecatapults out of a wine bottle in a variety of immersive, three dimensional segments, is compelling and entertaining to witness. Consumers can easily access the experience directly from a hyperlink or by simply scanning a QR code. Next year, the QR code will be featured on Siduri’s wine labels, so that consumers can launch the experience in their favorite wine shops and restaurants that carry Siduri wines. In these unique experiences, hologram-Adam tells stories about the 25-year old winery to capture the viewer’s attention in a lighthearted, immersive, and educational way.

“Siduri has always found ways to connect over wine without being overly complicated – it can be serious, while still being fun. Since founding Siduri, I wanted to break that preconceived notion that wine is too serious or snobby. Siduri is about my passion for Pinot but also a reflection of my personality – fun, laidback, probably too loud. When we were offered the chance to bring that personality to life in a whole new way, we jumped at the opportunity. It seemed like the perfect thing to do with a wine like Siduri,” said Adam Lee, Siduri Founder.

In our current reality, consumer brands are finding compelling new ways to connect with customers. The Siduri Holographic Experience is the first time volumetric captured content from Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios has been available in Web AR and applied in the consumer goods industry. Layered with an experience created by Rock Paper Reality’s award-winning team of 3D content creators and AR experts using 8th Wall’s Web AR development platform, the Siduri Holographic Experience is well-positioned to introduce the power of holograms and interactive AR to anyone with a smartphone.

Instead of walking door to door to share Siduri with consumers as founder Adam Lee did 25 years ago, he is now bringing the wines to every consumer through their smartphones. One of the challenges of using AR and volumetric capture for marketing brands has been that users have to have a special headset or download an application, which can be clunky and time-consuming — people generally quit within a few seconds if the set up isn’t seamless. “With our AR expertise and Microsoft’s volumetric capture technology, the holographic projections once only possible in films like ‘Star Wars’ can now be experienced by anyone, anytime – no downloads, no applications, no friction,” said Patrick Johnson, CEO of Rock Paper Reality.

“This is a powerful collaboration between industry leaders that demonstrates how volumetric video, Web AR, and the Azure cloud platform are reinventing how we engage with brands and tell stories around products,” said Steve Sullivan, General Manager, Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios.

Siduri’s Founder, Adam Lee’s performance was captured on stage at the Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios using their 106 camera system, which was post-processed and compressed using their Azure processing pipeline. With computer vision algorithms, a photo-realistic hologram of Adam was generated. RPR then took hologram-Adam, created 3D content and animations, and fused Adam into the digital environment. RPR integrated this content into a Web AR project using 8th Wall’s development platform and hosted the project on their servers. This allows anyone to access the Siduri Holographic Experience seamlessly from a hyperlink or by simply scanning a QR code.