Wargaming used mixed reality to recreate WWII Tiger tank used by Nazi Germany

USING some of the latest advancements in technology, a company has been able to recreate a rare variant of the WWII Tiger tank used by Nazi Germany.

One of these tanks is not like the other.

WORLD War II tanks are big, heavy things — and with relatively few of them left, it’s often hard to see the real thing, particularly unusual or specialist models.

This was the problem facing The Tank Museum at Bovington in the UK and one of their sponsors, the games company Wargaming, with a rare variant of the WWII Tiger tank used by Nazi Germany.

An exhibition on the Tiger family of tanks was being put together at the English armour museum and the Sturmtiger variant of the design was the only one missing from the physical display.

The sole surviving example was in Germany and could not be moved to the UK for the exhibition — so the team at Wargaming, makers of the popular World of Tanks game and sponsors of the exhibition, came up with an ingenious idea.

They would recreate the tank in Mixed Reality — a combination of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) — next to its comrades.

Wargaming’s special projects lead Matt Daly said they’d done AR projects before, but not on the same scale or with the Microsoft Hololens or Google Tango technology that would be used on the Sturmtiger.

“Microsoft Hololens and Google Tango use a combination of sensors to gather telemetry about a space, and then attempt understand and remember that space,” he said.

“We know they’re both the best in class next-gen AR platforms, because we’ve tested just about every other one that exists. They provide the right balance of performance and portability, one as a ‘phablet’ and one as a headset, while also providing that extremely essential object stability.

When there is only one WWII Tiger tank left, you have to improvise.

“Unlike traditional mobile devices, Hololens and Tango do not require markers or GPS, so they are immensely robust systems that stand up to a lot of visual complexity and variation in space.

Mr Daly said once they tested the two systems, they were blown away by the sheer stability of the experience.

“Both devices passed the ultimate stress test during multiple days of Tankfest. Even at high temperatures, in a highly dynamic room packed to the brim with people walking around, both devices performed exceptionally well at keeping the virtual Sturmtiger placed in the room with great stability,” he said.

Putting the project together had taken about four months, Mr Daly said, noting “a large chunk of which was making sure that we had every detail correct, historically and practically speaking”.

He said nothing really prepared us for the audience reception, however.

“The mix of wonderment and joy that we saw wash across countless faces during Tankfest was the ultimate feedback for us,” Mr Daly said.

“This intersection of super-engaging new media and heritage storytelling is exactly what we aim to do in Wargaming Special Projects, and it’s totally impossible without our extremely awesome partners like the Tank Museum and Gravity Jack. We really could not have been happier with the result.”

Having tried out the Microsoft Hololens AR experience for myself, I can confirm it was quite unlike anything I’d seen before, putting a computer-generated 3D model of the tank on the floorspace in the exhibit and running through a three-minute animation showing how the gun loads and fires in slow motion, accompanied by narration from Tank Museum curator David Willey.

The mixed reality allows you to see the tank like never before.

Most impressively, getting close to the tank triggered a cutaway view of the interior — something not easily achievable with an actual tank, with museums frowning on people climbing o exhibits.

Mr Daly said the team were contstantly in uncharted terrain.

“First, there were many never-before-documented technical challenges we faced regularly. Then, the real challenge became: how do you build a site-specific virtual experience that can also be run anywhere else in the world? How do you keep the visitor grounded in reality so that they’re having a true mixed reality, not virtual reality experience? How to provide that feeling of dimension, with a fixed virtual object, so that you get that sense that you’re surrounded by content, but can still be grounded in the real reality around you?

“We were very conscious that we didn’t want to make a VR experience like we’ve done in many different ways before, but a true Mixed Reality experience.

“We designed the Sturmtiger mixed reality experience with a keen awareness that the real Tiger would be sitting next to the virtual Sturmtiger. She is the jewel of the Tank Museum collection, so we knew we needed to include her in the experience.”

Despite the amazing AR/VR technology involved in the exhibition, Mr Daly said there were currently no plans at present to reproduce it in any of the other museums.

“There are no current plans with other museums, because nobody else in history has built a Tiger exhibition like the Tank Museum at Bovington,” he said.

“However, based off of audience feedback thus far, we’re exploring the possibility of taking the AR Sturmtiger on the road to some of our other global events.”

Mr Daly said there were some major tidal shifts that are coming to the AR/VR industry soon, including a depth-sensing iPhone 8.

“When there’s suddenly a massive instant market for next-gen, depth-sensing, room-understanding AR games and experiences, we’re going to see the medium of mixed reality shift into next gear,” he said.

Royce Wilson travelled to Tankfest as a guest of Wargaming.