Alibaba Cloud and Parallel Cloud launched the cloud XR platform to support the rapid implementation of immersive experience applications | E-book free download

Introduction: will enable immersive experience, virtual reality and other application innovations to flourish

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Recently, Alibaba Cloud and Parallel Cloud jointly released the cloud XR platform to lower the development threshold of cloud-based visual computing applications , accelerate the implementation of XR applications such as digital twins, virtual humans, virtual reality, immersive experience and virtual simulation platforms, and help the Internet, new retail, Explore innovative business forms in social, industrial, transportation, urban management and other industries.

The Alibaba Cloud XR platform provides services such as computing power scheduling, 3D real-time rendering, audio and video encoding and streaming, application publishing, and user management. 3D application developers can publish and host applications on the cloud XR platform, and 3D application users can use AR/VR/MR and other multi-terminals to join the cloud XR platform to interact and experience 3D applications.

Cloud-based visual computing boom to improve user experience

In recent years, cloud games, immersive experiences, virtual reality, virtual humans, etc. have boomed. These applications have many high-fidelity 3D models, which require a lot of computing power for model rendering and image processing. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud collectively refers to such applications as visual computing applications.

Emerging visual computing applications often need to be deployed in the cloud. First, due to its huge demand for computing, the computing power of the terminal has been difficult to meet , requiring the support of ultra-large-scale elastic computing power in the cloud; second, placing computing in the cloud can reduce the dependence on the computing power of terminal equipment and support head-mounted displays , mobile phones and other richer terminal forms, and there is no need to download GB-level clients, fast access anytime, anywhere, greatly improving the user experience. For developers, cloud-native visual computing applications greatly reduce the cost of terminal adaptation and improve efficiency for R&D.

Large-scale 3A terminal games, BIM engineering visualization systems, etc. are relatively traditional visual computing applications. In the past, such applications were often installed on high-configured terminals, such as PCs with independent graphics and special graphics workstations; the circulation and dissemination of related models was extremely inconvenient, and there was a risk of information leakage.

The emerging cloud-based visual computing breaks all limitations and can interact through mobile phones, PCs, XR (AR/VR/MR) head-mounted display terminals, etc. In terms of business architecture, computing and interaction are decoupled, real-time 3D rendering in the cloud, and content is pushed to the terminal through audio and video streams. The terminal is mainly responsible for audio and video output and human-computer interaction.

However, developers still need to solve many technical challenges in rendering, coding, and pushing of cloud-based visual computing applications, such as:

● How to achieve only 3D rendering without display output in the cloud;

● How to push the rendered picture to the terminal, and ensure audio and video synchronization and low latency, compatible with different devices;

● How to push the rendered screen of the specified application to the specified user;

● How to achieve efficient matching between 3D applications and cloud computing resources.

Alibaba Cloud XR platform, easy cloudification for 3D applications

The Alibaba Cloud XR platform can provide services from the underlying facilities to the platform layer, covering the above processes such as rendering, encoding, and streaming. Developers can access it through the SDK. It supports both zero-code application deployment and more flexible secondary development. . 3D application developers only need to publish and host their applications on the cloud XR platform to automatically complete cloud deployment and application packaging, and end users can easily experience applications through different terminals.

According to Alibaba Cloud heterogeneous computing product experts, the Alibaba Cloud XR platform has the following advantages :

● Compatible with multiple platforms : The cloud XR platform supports a variety of popular real-time 3D engines, including Unity 3D, Unreal Engine, CryEngine, etc. It also supports a variety of popular AR/VR/MR terminals, compatible with Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android, iOS, etc. different systems.

● Immediate release of 3D applications : Through Alibaba Cloud Computing Nest, users can deploy their 3D applications on the cloud XR platform within minutes, and release the service to any corner of the world. A set of platforms provides software and hardware technical services for the whole process of rendering, coding, and streaming, and also provides user management, resource management and other services. Users with secondary development needs can realize a rich business system through the perfect interface provided by the platform, which is separated from the XR system developed with various 3D engines such as UE, so as to realize independent development and reduce development difficulty and personnel input cost.

● High performance and low latency : The cloud XR platform can choose Alibaba Cloud vGN7i instances equipped with NVIDIA A10 Tensor Core GPUs and vGN6i instances equipped with NVIDIA RTX A6000 GPUs. These instances support powerful functions such as Alibaba Cloud Dragon and NVIDIA hardware real-time ray tracing , including AI CG optimization, AI video quality optimization, image and streaming media optimization and other algorithms and suites, which can achieve higher performance 3D real-time rendering and low-latency interaction.

Flexible resource scheduling : The cloud XR platform combines the resource elasticity advantages of Alibaba Cloud elastic computing and the out-of-the-box computing resource delivery advantages of elastic computing. The cloud XR platform can achieve flexible deployment of services and flexible delivery of applications in a wide range. .

Cloud Visual Computing Application Architecture Diagram

The cloud XR platform is jointly produced by Alibaba Cloud and Parallel Cloud. Alibaba Cloud mainly provides the super cloud computing power of the self-developed Shenlong architecture and the self-developed streaming media encoding technology . The platform layer is provided by the parallel cloud for rendering, encoding and streaming services. Efficient packaging, integrating Alibaba Cloud's underlying IaaS capabilities, and supporting the NVIDIA CloudXR platform.

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In recent years, immersive experience has received great attention, and the market is eager to explore the application of this aspect. In this process, cloud infrastructure and platform services are essential. Alibaba Cloud is the top three cloud vendors in the world. It has obvious advantages in terms of scale, elasticity, stability and ease of use of computing services. Parallel Cloud is the leading software platform in the field of cloud XR. Let immersive experience, virtual reality and other application innovations flourish, and the visual computing ecosystem will flourish .

——Wang Zhikun, Director of Elastic Computing Product, Alibaba Cloud

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