Today Microsoft has launched a new tool for HoloLens developers called Spectator View, thus enabling them to demonstrate their applications to an audience.
Whether its virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) for people to understand the technologies the issue has always been about user interaction, getting someone to try it is usually easier than explaining it. For Microsoft and its MR headset HoloLens the company created Mixed Reality Capture (MRC) to aid in the visualization of holograms to let an audience see what the presenter on stage can see, but this was only from a first-person perspective. With the Spectator View tool this now becomes third-person.
The tool is actually part software, part camera system in which a HoloLens is mounted to a DSLR. Using a special bracket – which can be 3D printed – the headset then connects to a PC wirelessly with the camera outputting via HDMI to a capture card. It’s then a case of starting up the Spectator View software to test it out.
As explained in Microsoft’s blog: “A spectator view camera will allow your audience to do more than just see what you see when wearing a HoloLens. Yes, it allows others, who aren’t wearing HoloLens, to see the holograms you would see if you were wearing the device, but it also allows you to see what the people wearing HoloLens are doing and how they are interacting with their mixed reality experience.” Checkout the blog for all the official documentation needed to get you started.
For all the latest HoloLens news, keep reading VRFocus.