Microsoft is working on a way to create a more authentic augmented reality experience with the HoloLens. Microsoft’s challenge of tricking you into believing there are photorealistic 3D people exist in front of you is no simple task. This new technology could help you walk around in an imaginary crowd or watch a baseball game as if you were actually sitting in the stands. This latest venture is not unlike Microsoft Research’s RoomAlive project, where people could interact with a room in your house.
Microsoft is working out of its own custom holographic TV studio in Redmond, Washington using close to 100 cameras to record an activity, like playing soccer, from 360-degrees. Microsoft software combines the multiple angles to create 3D models of the people involved in playing the soccer game, giving the HoloLens user a photorealistic experience.
Steve Sullivan, who works on the HoloLens project, believes that the more traditional way of using computer animation is incomparable to Microsoft’s HoloLens’ approach. Sullivan showed off the HoloLens technology, which Microsoft is calling “video holograms” at the LDV Vision Summit, a image-processing event that was in New York City on Tuesday, May 20.
The more traditional approach of using computer animation can’t compare, according to Steve Sullivan, who works on the project at Microsoft. He demonstrated what Microsoft calls “video holograms” at the LDV Vision Summit, an event about image-processing technology, in New York on Tuesday. Sullivan explains: “There’s something magical about it being real people and motion. If you have a HoloLens, you really feel these performances are in your world.” Sullivan believes it may be simple enough to walk in a local studio and get a 3D photorealistic copy of yourself or whole family so you can interact with your holographic clones. Sounds creepy.
At the LDV Summit, Microsoft demonstrated the technology with holographic videos of theatrical and acrobatic performances. Sullivan also suggested other ways the new HoloLens technology could be used; like sports instruction, for learning how to play tennis or even sport strategy, for basketball teams to plan the best defense against an opponent; viewing everything from multiple angles.
The HoloLens utilizes a special holographic display technology that tricks you into seeing 3D objects better that other virtual reality headsets on the market. HoloLens’ special sensors gauge how to present virtual objects and how they integrate into reality. Many companies are looking for other ways to use the HoloLens technology to record live action in sports or film a movie. Hopefully, we will hear more information on this yet unnamed technology when more details are released this summer.
