Joining the Hololens Developer community

So over the past few weeks I have so many academic interested in AR/VR or mixed reality as me question about Hololens. Firstly I am not a member of the Hololens team and have no details on HoloLens other than what is on the public web and you should always check out the official developer site for the product documentation.

MSHoloLens_GroupShot_wAcc_WhtBG_V2_RGB

Well if your interested in building for HoloLens in Unity then one of the first and important things that you’ll come across is the HoloLens Toolkit-Unity which is referenced from the official ‘Getting Started’ docs here;

Developing holographic apps uses the Universal Windows Platform

All holographic apps are Universal Windows apps

All Universal Windows apps can be made to run on Microsoft HoloLens

One Windows Platform available on all Windows devices

Full details at https://dev.windows.com/holographic

There are six fundamental building blocks for mixed reality holographic apps:

Interaction with HoloLens has been designed around gaze, gesture and voice. This is sometimes referred to as GGV. The environmental understanding features like coordinates, spatial sound and spatial mapping provide the ability for holograms to interact with both the user and the world around them.

Holograms are made of light and sound, which depends on rendering. Understanding the experience of placement and persistence, as demonstrated in the HoloLens shell is a great way ground yourself in the user experience.

Hololens Interactions

Gaze

Gaze tells you where the user is looking in the world and lets you determine their intent -

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/gaze

Gesture

Gesture input lets you interact with your holograms naturally using your hands or, optionally, with a clicker

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/gestures

Voice Commands

Voice allows you to directly command a hologram without having to use gestures. You simply gaze at a hologram and speak your command

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/voice_input

Spatial Mapping

Spatial mapping provides a detailed representation of real-world surfaces in the environment around the HoloLens, allowing developers to create a convincing mixed reality experience.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/spatial_mapping

Spatial Sound

Using spatial sound in an application allows developers to convincingly place sounds in a 3 dimensional space (sphere) all around the user.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/spatial_sound

World Coordinates

Precisely positioning and orienting those holograms at places in the world that are meaningful to the user.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/coordinate_systems

Developing for Hololenshttps://dev.microsoft.com/windows/holographic

You need:

Visual Studio 2015 Update 3

64-bit Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education with a 64-bit CPU (4+ cores)

8GB RAM, GPU (DirectX 11, WDDM 1.2 driver)

Windows 10 SDK (10.0.10586 or newer)

HoloLens Emulator (requires, Hardware-assisted virtualization, SLAT & DEP)

A UWP app that builds for x86

Unity not needed for 2D UWP apps

One of your first destinations when considering developing with Hololens and Unity is the Getting Started with the HoloToolkit-Unity to help you get started on this you can watch the following short intro video by my colleague Mike Taulty.

 

 

 

Order a device today available on microsoftstore.com

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Shipping to : US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany

English only

HoloLens Development Edition

$3000 Limit 5 devices

HoloLens Commercial Suite

$5000 Ideal for organizations, the Commercial Suite includes the Development Edition, enterprise features, and a warranty.

For more information see https://www.hololens.com

HoloToolkit-Unity. Cloning and Packaging from Mike Taulty on Vimeo.