Theia Interactive Announces Claria, a Bioanalytic Perception Tracker for VR

CHICO, Calif. – September 30, 2020 – Visualization firm and software developer, Theia Interactive, today announces Claria, a new suite of bioanalytic software tools designed to analyze a person’s physical responses while in VR. Created specifically for HP’s new Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition VR headset, Claria analyzes physical reactions to determine how a person thinks about a given experience, helping creators and companies zero in on the exact design qualities that will make it stand out.

“It’s easy to look at something and know if you like it or not, but defining exactly what isn’t working can be much trickier,” said Bill Fishkin, founder and president of Theia Interactive. “With Claria, we can determine how you feel about a design before you can even put it into words.”

Utilizing the biosensors inherent within the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition VR headset, Claria can record and track six key markers – heart rate, heart rate variability, cognitive load, eye vector, pupillometry and saccade. Using this information, architects and designers can determine which builds command attention, while marketers can tell which locations and features within a VR project attract a person’s gaze. Designers can judge the intuitiveness of their creations and understand what users expect or test multiple designs and go with the one that generates the best reaction. The possibilities are endless.

The biometric results recorded by Claria can be configured to provide the user with easy-to-understand results – including heat maps, graphs and videos – or huge amounts of raw data to help better understand what users feel about what they saw. Claria is also designed to work natively with Theia’s Optim software, a suite of tools created to help streamline and enhance the creation process within Unreal Engine, including VR projects. Using Optim, Claria can extend its bioanalytical tools to Theia’s multi-user collaborative template, simultaneously bringing multiple people together inside a VR project within Unreal. Users and creators can meet in a virtual space and make changes to VR designs based on the reactions of users. 

“The beauty of incorporating biosensors into the AR/VR experience is that it reveals to you what you cannot see about yourself,” said Julia Scott, Ph.D., research associate at BioInnovation Lab, School of Engineering, Santa Clara University. “By measuring, visualizing and analyzing autonomic and reflexive responses, the user harnesses their unfiltered reactivity to inform their decision-making.”

Claria will be released in conjunction with the HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition VR headset in early 2021. 

About Theia Interactive
Based in Chico, California, Theia Interactive is a creative solutions studio with a passion for building beautiful virtual environments for business, and offering tools to empower others to do the same. Whether it’s mobile apps, augmented reality demos or virtual reality experiences, Theia tells engaging stories through virtualization. Theia has created award-winning projects for companies such as Epic Games, HP Inc., Mohawk Group, NVIDIA, Suffolk Construction and Toll Brothers. For more information visit https://theia.io/.