Immersive technologies enable the full-scale visualisation of a product during the design phase, even before a mock-up has been created. This means that product design stages can be optimised by anticipating problems (related to ergonomics, interferences, escape routes and so forth), by highlighting what such problems might involve, and by reducing their impact on product development costs. Immersive technologies also make it possible to evaluate alternative scenarios and expand the range of product configurations that can be considered – to an exponential degree.

Industrial machinery and automated production systems are becoming ever more sophisticated and complex. These kinds of technology require a high level of “preparedness”, particularly for those who will be working on the equipment concerned. Often, the specialised training concerned can only be conducted on a real-life system, involving a range of situations that are not simultaneously reproducible and that can incur high costs. Consider, for example maintenance operations that can only be conducted when the system or machinery is not operating. By using virtual reality, however, a person can be immersed in a simulated virtual environment and therefore be given the optimum preparation thanks to the specific creation of any operational scenario. Furthermore, transportable virtual systems enable such training sessions to be carried out anywhere. Similarly, communication technologies allow for virtual collaboration scenarios (involving multiple users working together to complete a project in the virtual world) and remote virtual training scenarios.