See Your Designs Through Someone Else’s Eyes, A New Virtual Reality Experience

Join us at LightHouse for the Blind for lunch and to hear about the latest concepts, applications, and emerging use cases of virtual and augmented reality-- and then try them on yourself! Theia Immersive has developed technology that allows architects and designers to experience their work through the eyes of a blind or visually impaired person. 
Sounds cool, right? There will be ample time to try out the technology in custom simulations generated specifically for the LightHouse facility. We'll have teams from both Theia and LightHouse to talk about partnership, product roll-outs, and all your new ideas, including software, city planning, education, empathy training and more.  

Full Day Schedule
10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Theia Immersive Presents: Ocular Simulations for Interior and Exterior Environments (recommended for architects and open to anyone)$10
11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Activations Experience Virtual Reality: Tour LightHouse from a custom-outfitted simulation roomAugmented Reality: Experience your surroundings through Theia's ocular simulation interface Free of charge
12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Complimentary Lunch
1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.Theia Immersive Presents: Ocular Simulations for Interior and Exterior Environments (recommended for software designers and UX professionals and open to anyone)$10 
2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.Activations Experience Virtual Reality: Tour LightHouse from a custom-outfitted simulation roomAugmented Reality: Experience your surroundings through Theia's ocular simulation interface Free of charge
Trouble with Eventbrite? Email [email protected]

More about the event
On May 18th, LightHouse for the Blind presents Eyeware  – a New Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Experience for Inclusive Design 
“Looking through the eyes” of another is a nice empathetic metaphor, but it can quite literally be a valuable exercise. Next month, a mini-conference at LightHouse for the Blind in San Francisco spotlights a new real-time, immersive ocular simulation that allows individuals to experience how people with low vision, color blindness or a variety of eye conditions navigate built environments.
LightHouse invites architects, developers, educators, designers and anyone who strives to build accessible environments – including transport systems, urban spaces, buildings, automotive design, interiors, software interfaces and prototyping – to explore a new opportunity in inclusive design: Join us to try on Eyeware.
On May 18, LightHouse for the Blind in San Francisco invites designers and planners to move beyond metaphors and look at the world a little differently. For years, vision professionals have simulated various eye conditions through goggles, plastic filters and other low tech solutions. Here, users are invited to try on a more efficient solution. The first demonstration of its kind, Eyeware will demo new virtual and augmented reality technology developed by Theia Immersive that allows designers and consumers to step into a real-time simulation of someone else’s eyesight.
LightHouse welcomes Theia in their first North American presentation and workshop at 1155 Market St. (10th Floor) in San Francisco. Co-presented by Yahoo and welcoming a host of other companies dedicated to universal design, this event will take place in two sessions, with one morning presentation geared toward physical space, and an afternoon session focused on interface design. All are invited to a complimentary lunchtime event with two active simulation rooms. The event will likely sell out, so RSVP now.

More about the Eyeware App
Utilizing a robust set of proprietary visual filters (“like Instagram for your eyeballs”), Theia Immersive Eyeware App is the gateway to a software suite that allows design professionals to see the world with a variety of eye conditions including color blindness, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and even certain rare conditions that cumulatively affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Eyeware can be used with a cardboard or custom headset to deliver a combination VR + AR experience, giving anyone with so-called “normal” vision a new level of insight. The Eyeware filters, when applied, give designers additional tools to audit, manipulate and run wayfinding routes in both preexisting and newly rendered environments. Theia’s design tools can be deployed anywhere in the design process to facilitate collaboration, design review and visual accessibility for professionals, clients and users both sighted and blind – moving designers beyond simple notions of brightness and contrast into nuanced aesthetic palettes that work for all types of vision. The Eyeware App, available now for iOS and Android, sets the stage for a comprehensive design suite from Theia, now in Beta.
Why would I want to experience a Visual Impairment?
From the subtle, gauzy effects of cataracts to the more dramatic challenges of tunnel vision or retinopathy, changes in vision are incredibly hard to convey in words, photographs or standard-ratio video. Fully sighted designers can guess, but rarely know exactly how to optimize their products for low vision.
Developed by the UK Transport Systems Catapult’s spinoff – now called Theia Immersive – to tackle the challenges of public transit, the new virtual and augmented reality software will join the toolkit of accessibility best practices observed by agencies such as the LightHouse and Arch4Blind in communicating the nuances of various eye conditions and their implications for design. With Theia’s tools, the designer now has a direct connection to the experience of a variety of clients and users.
From testing out physical interfaces for low lighting conditions, to evaluating for effective color contrast in side-by-side comparison, to actually strapping on the gear and diving into your CAD model or environment design, these tools give designers an edge on ensuring the project’s visual accessibility from the outset.
Big thanks to our event sponsors and co-presenters: