ETSI signs MoUs with Khronos and OARC for Augmented Reality

ETSI signs MoUs with Khronos and OARC for Augmented Reality

Liaison agreements strengthen the outreach of the ETSI group on AR

Sophia Antipolis, 3 June 2020

ETSI has signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the Khronos^® Group and OARC (Open AR Cloud Association) to allow the exchange of views and expertise between ETSI and both organizations to further develop interoperability of AR components, systems and services necessary to enable a thriving ecosystem with a diverse range of technologies and solution providers.

OARC's mission is to drive the development of open and interoperable AR Cloud technology, data and standards to connect the physical and digital worlds for the benefit of all. OARC believes AR cloud technology will profoundly change the way we see and interact with each other and our physical surroundings. OARC’s working groups include spatial indexing and GeoPose, content delivery, browsing and ownership, user experience, accessibility, and safety or Open Source, open data and open R&D, to name a few.

Khronos is dedicated to the creation of royalty-free open interoperability standards for 3D graphics, virtual and augmented reality — collectively known as XR, parallel computing, neural networks, and vision processing on a wide variety of platforms and devices from the desktop to embedded and safety critical devices. Khronos standards are key technologies in their respective markets, such as Vulkan^® and OpenGL^® in graphics and gaming, WebGL^TM in 3D web graphics, OpenVX^TM and OpenCL^TM in embedded vision and compute, NNEF^TM in Machine Learning, as well as OpenXR^TM, the Khronos open standard for portable access to XR platforms and devices.

ETSI Industry Specification Group Augmented Reality Framework (ISG ARF) is defining a framework for the interoperability of Augmented Reality (AR) components, systems and services that specifies relevant components and interfaces required for an AR solution. Transparent and reliable interworking between different AR components is key to the successful roll-out and wide adoption of AR applications and services.

ETSI, OARC and Khronos all have the common objective to perform and promote, directly or indirectly, regional and international standardization with the aim of contributing to the establishment of a global interoperable information framework. Collaboration between ETSI and both OARC and Khronos will undoubtedly add significant value to the ETSI ISG ARF.