Microsoft Hololens by
Karthik Sankar
Hololens isn’t a new thing. It was
announced a few years back… And you still can’t buy one. There is currently a
$3000 developer edition if you are really excited and want to check it out.
Unfortunately, there is no consumer mass market version yet.
You may
be wondering: Just what is Hololens?
Well here
is what you need to know:
- VR?
AR? VR
stands for Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality is when the user in immersed
into a completely new world. This is extremely popular for Gaming.
Usually, VR programs and games try to get you to forget about the real
world and become completely immersed in the virtual world. AR stands for
Augmented Reality. This is when you are still aware of your surrounding
but get digital overlays over what you see. This can be accomplished by
using a camera or projecting an image on glass. This is usually used
when the user wants some additional information about their environment.
For example, Google Lens, an AR app announced by Google recently will let
you put your phone in front of a Store and it will identify which store
you are looking at and overlay that in the form of a card floating over
the store. The Hololens is an AR device. It consists of a glass visor that
stays in front of your eyes.
- Virtual
Objects. What
makes Hololens different is that instead of simply identifying objects it
can create location-based artificial objects. For example, You could want
a huge flat screen TV in your living room. With a few waves of the hand,
you could have one on your Hololens. It would act like a TV with all the
functionally. If you move your head it will move away. More importantly,
it will only be visible if you are in that room. This means you can leave
the room and you won’t see the TV anymore but your TV will stay in that
room as if it was a real object.
- 3D
modeling. I
think it’s undeniable how amazing 3D printing is. It’s something everyone
would like to be able to do but something that has a learning curve. This
is partially caused by the fact that when you model in 3D you are still
looking at a 2D screen. In addition, You don’t have a scale of what it
will look like in real life. Hololens lets you mold your model to
perfection in 3D space. You can walk around it, look at different viewing
angles and judge its size. Not only that but you can use your hands to
sculpt it. A tool almost everyone is accustomed to using.
I think
it’s clear Hololens is an amazing product. Let's hope a commercial version
comes out soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment