As a nascent industry, the extended reality (XR) space in Singapore is still mostly represented and dictated by global norms and trends.
Large tech MNCs such as Meta, Apple, and Sony lead the race, yet, one homegrown startup — Refract Technologies — is looking to disrupt the industry through innovations in gaming and entertainment.
Today, the biggest barrier to the widespread adoption of immersive technologies is the limitations of interactivity within virtual environments.
Virtual reality (VR) headsets, like Meta’s impressive Quest 3 headset, can only offer a glimpse into the potential of immersive experiences. Sure, you can look around virtual spaces with these devices — but your body movements aren’t fully tracked, limiting the level of immersion.
In order to overcome this pain point, Refract Technologies has launched AXIS, a wearable and game-oriented full-body motion capture solution.
The world’s first full-body motion capture system with inside out tracking
Refract Technologies was co-founded by Chong Geng Ng, 37, Michael Chng, 38, and Eugene Koh, 39, back in 2018. The founders have decades of experience working across diverse industries, including the esports and gaming industries.
We were working on a gaming-related project and encountered a perennial question in the industry: How would one bridge the gap between gaming and physical activity?
– Michael Chng, co-founder and CEO, Refract Technologies
After “many late nights” of deep research, the founders finally settled on a solution — a wearable device that allows players to use their bodies as game controllers.
According to Refract Technologies, AXIS is the world’s first wireless plug-and-play full-body tracking (FBT) system that combines both professional motion capture technology with patent-pending inside-out positional tracking.
Most immersive systems and FBT systems available in the market today fall short when it comes to real-time usability. These devices are usually “clunky”, requiring external base-stations and setups that are tedious, and come with a high price tag.
AXIS, however, is fully untethered and wireless. Furthermore, when used in conjunction with a VR headset, users would only need to equip a minimum of four tracker nodes to register their body movements in a virtual environment.
In contrast, the majority of FBT systems would require and average of 17 or more trackers to successfully capture movement.
AXIS is transforming gaming, sports and content creation
Besides deepening the immersion of VR gaming experiences, AXIS’ motion trackers have various use cases, ranging from Vtubing (a form of content creation where streamers use motion tracking systems to animate a virtual avatar) to facilitating immersive training for high risk occupations and levelling the playing field for various sports.
AXIS’ accessibility brings professional-grade motion tracking to a much wider audience. This empowers users to bring these capabilities to both personal and professional pursuits, ranging from physically enhanced gaming and content creation to enterprise usage such as facilitating advanced training.
– Michael Chng, co-founder and CEO, Refract Technologies
In 2021, Refract Technologies partnered with Samsung and the global governing body of taekwondo, World Taekwondo, to remove the barriers to the sport with the debut of the world’s first virtual taekwondo tournament.
During the tournament, players donned AXIS’ tracker nodes on their arms, legs, and head, allowing them overcome physical barriers to compete across genders, weight classes, age groups and even geographies.
Creating “unprecedented technology” was a “daunting task”
Although the wearable device has found success in various applications today, Michael candidly acknowledges that the startup’s early days was far from easy. In fact, it took the startup five years to ideate, design and engineer AXIS’ hardware and software.
While the co-founder’s collective personal and industry experiences enabled them to tackle most challenges in the creation of the tech, creating “unprecedented technology” was still a “daunting task” for Refract Technologies’ small team.
“We were aiming to address an issue that even gaming industry titans are still grappling with,” the CEO said.
To make matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow to the startup as it was just starting off.
It was initially a huge disruptor to our workflow and the team was forced to adapt and innovate. On top of this we were met with issues relating to delays and item sourcing due to shocks in the supply chain.
– Michael Chng, co-founder and CEO, Refract Technologies
In order to overcome these struggles, the company decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign in late 2021 to bring AXIS to the market. And to their pleasant surprise, the response from the campaign was overwhelming.
In just 45 days, the startup managed to raise S$195,000 from 301 backers, surpassing their initial funding goal of S$133,000.
Refract Technologies has raised over S$15 million from investors including Sea Limited
Following the successful crowdfunding campaign, Refract Technologies has seen continued success and recognition, with the company having raised a total of over S$15 million in funding coming from investors such as Sea Limited.
While available for order, AXIS is now ready for a wider market push to more channels following heavy development and feature rich updates in the past year.
We’re very fortunate to have an inquisitive and passionate userbase who have been supportive throughout all our stages. At the end of the day, we develop our technologies to better the lives of all our users.
Their enthusiasm and continuous feedback have been invaluable in providing us direction for improvement.
– Michael Chng, co-founder and CEO, Refract Technologies
Aside from the continual software and hardware updates for AXIS, Refract Technologies is also actively developing other mixed reality solutions as the company looks to extend its reach in the extended reality space with XR locomotion as well as facial tracking and finger tracking.
The company has an internal game developer, Deep Dive Studios, which is actively developing and prototyping game concepts that the company hopes “to reveal to the market soon”.
Ultimately, Refract Technologies aims to “extend human experience beyond reality” through innovations in gaming-led technology.
We hope to harness the massive potential of these technologies to enhance lives; from creating immersive entertainment experiences for consumers and prosumers, to empowering enterprise applications.
– Ikhwan Zainal, co-founder of Refract Technologies’ game development arm, Deep Dive studios
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Featured Image Credit: Refract Technologies
