Innovative VR technologies: Weimar company triumphs on Laval Virtual!

Innovative VR technologies: Weimar company triumphs on Laval Virtual!

The honors for outstanding achievements in the world of immersive technologies were recently presented at the Laval Virtual Festival 2025 awarded. Amid the creative chaos that is the festival with the theme “Pop Chaos!” offered, remarkable innovations and talents from the Bauhaus University Weimar were honored.

The mixed reality company Consensive GmbH, which was founded by alumni of the Department of Media Informatics, received the award in the Developer & Authoring Tools category for its solution VR4more-GLoD. This innovative technology makes it possible to smoothly experience highly detailed 3D data on low-performance hardware, revolutionizing the streaming of 3D geometries for the Unity engine.

Outstanding Awards and Contributions

Moritz Wehrmann, media art alumnus and long-time faculty member, also received the prize for his installation “Alter Ego (Version II)”. This installation was shown as part of the art exhibition Recto VRso and encourages a dialogue about self-perception and the perception of others. Wehrmann's works impressively show the interface between art and technology, which was the theme of the festival.

The event Laval Virtual is an international trade fair that has been taking place in the city of the same name since 1999 and is considered the European capital of virtual reality. Creatives and innovators from all over the world meet here to present the latest developments in the areas of virtual, mixed and augmented reality.

Technological progress and new products

Consensive GmbH, founded in 2021 as a subsidiary of the Bauhaus University Weimar, specializes in social mixed reality. The company's solutions promote exchange and collaboration and combine high-quality 3D data visualization with a user-friendly experience. As part of the festival, the new product GLoD was presented, which makes handling 3D models similar to video streaming.

The developers had the opportunity to test VR4more Data with GLoD at the stand. This technology enables cross-platform use and to optimize the process for streaming large amounts of 3D data. The highlight was live demonstrations of the social mixed reality software with the Converseum installation, which offers cost-effective solutions for trade fairs and museums and enables the presentation of interactive digital twins of cultural heritage sites.

Market development and trends

In a broader context is the development of immersive technologies in 2025, reminiscent of the PC industry of the 1980s. One focus here is on the standardization of hardware interfaces, not operating systems. The approaches of companies like Apple with VisionOS and Vision Pro and Meta with Quest 3 show the direction in which the market is developing. Both have different focuses, with Apple pursuing a closed high-end ecosystem while Meta aims for a mass-market model.

With the aim of a unifying platform, Android Developments in the XR space, as some companies create their own terms and brand names, bring to the fore the need for clear definitions and creating transparency for users.

The successes and innovations presented at the Laval Virtual Festival 2025 clearly show that the combination of art and technology is crucial not only for the industry, but also for society's perception of immersive spatial and computer media. The alumni of the Bauhaus University Weimar are once again making an important contribution to these developments and are actively shaping the future of digital experience.