Through the Interface

Reducing the pain of VR content generation: Autodesk LIVE

Some of you may have heard about the launch of a new Autodesk product, last week, that’s focused on generating interactive 3D environments from Revit models. It’s called Autodesk LIVE and is part of the Autodesk LIVE Design umbrella (at least I think I have that the right way around). Autodesk LIVE Design is all about making it easier to apply best-in-class visualization technology from our Media & Entertainment division – who collectively know a few things about high-end rendering and animation, admittedly – to the world of design and engineering. Here’s a video describing how Autodesk LIVE –... Read more →

Adding spatial sound to our Unity model in HoloLens – Part 2

Last time we looked at a rudimentary – although in some senses complicated – spatial sound implementation for our ABB IRB 6620 industrial robot model inside HoloLens. It was simple because we added a single sound at the root of the robot, and complicated because we then had to track the status of each of the robot’s parts and turn the sound off when all were stopped. In this post we’re going to look at the second of the three design options we saw last time: A single sound is assigned to our robot When the robot stops completely,... Read more →

Adding spatial sound to our Unity model in HoloLens – Part 1

As mentioned last time, upgrading to Windows 10 has opened the door to spatial sound in our HoloLens model. The foundational step is to set our Unity project’s audio settings to have the Spatializer Plugin as the “MS HRTF Spatializer”: if you don’t see this option then you may need to upgrade your OS (as I did). At this point we need to think a little about how best to implement spatial sound in this project, particularly as it literally contains a number of moving parts. I see three main alternatives: A single sound is assigned to our robot... Read more →

Developing for HoloLens on Windows 10

So yes, it does make sense to switch to Windows 10 if you’re doing HoloLens development. As mentioned in a recent post, I’d previously not upgraded any of my work PCs to Windows 10, mainly due to lack of formal support from our IT department. Which isn’t in itself a huge concern, but I do need to connect to certain pieces of corporate infrastructure, so this was enough of a deterrent in the absence of a compelling reason to upgrade. The two main potentially compelling reasons I hit while working on this HoloLens project were: Inability to run the... Read more →

Adding voice commands and spatial mapping to our Unity model in HoloLens

In the last post we added a gaze cursor and some command support for our ABB industrial robot inside HoloLens. The next step I took was to add spatial mapping, allowing the user to select the base of the robot and move it around within the spatially mapped environs. The Holograms 101 tutorial provided very straightforward instructions on how to implement spatial mapping. I once again had to export the “wireframe” material asset from the provided project to get it across into my own, but that was a minor detail. Unfortunately when testing the capability – just as with... Read more →

Le Tour de France hits Switzerland

The 2016 Tour de France passed within a few hundred metres of my home, this afternoon. It comes to Switzerland every so often – I’m guessing at every 5-6 years, on average – but it’s the first time I’ve had the chance to see it here. We made an afternoon of it: with some friends we headed over to a good spot in plenty of time for the kids to decorate the road with some pavement chalk. We then waited around for the bicycles to show up. The sponsors’ caravan came first and the kids had plenty of fun... Read more →

Adding gaze and gestures to control our Unity model in HoloLens

Now that our industrial robot is animated, I thought it a good time to head back on over and finish more of the Holograms 101 tutorial. The next section of the tutorial focuses on adding a gaze cursor to the application: you have a torus mesh that tracks against the geometry the user is looking at. The instructions were reasonably straightforward – even when retrofitting the approach for a different project – but there were a few “gotchas” that are worth documenting: The simplest way to get the cursor – and its dependent bits and pieces – across into... Read more →

Animating our Unity model for HoloLens

Now that we have our basic model of the ABB 6620 industrial robot inside HoloLens, it’s time to make it move. Tom Eriksson kindly provided some basic scripts to perform rotations on the various parts in the base model. I went ahead and consolidated these into a single “Rotate” script, with parameters (the speed, axis and min/max angles of the rotation) that vary depending on the part being rotated. For instance, some parts can rotate freely around their main axis while others are physically constrained to move between certain angle limits. This is taken care of by the below... Read more →

Displaying your Unity model in 3D using HoloLens

This post shows something really simple, but I decided to share it here as it took me some time to track down. On Saturday I received the 3D model of an ABB industrial robot – the IRB 6620 I mentioned last week – from Tom Eriksson. He’s used a number of tools – including Fusion 360 – to create a gorgeous rendition of this particular robot in Unity. Tom very kindly agreed to share the model, and has spent quite a bit of time helping get it ready for HoloLens. The first version Tom sent unfortunately didn’t work for... Read more →

Usability testing HoloLens

I’m supposed to be off work, this week, so aside from a small amount of HoloLens-related fun, I’ve actually been stuck up a ladder, sanding and painting some of my home’s woodwork. This has left my younger kids (who are now 7 and 9 years old) ample time to stress-test HoloLens, which has led to some fascinating results. I should say that I gave them very little instruction on how to use HoloLens: I showed the air-tap and bloom gestures, but that was about it. I didn’t bother recalibrating the device for little fingers, either. When I finally put... Read more →

My first HoloLens application

After managing to get HoloLens working properly, yesterday I dove right into the Holograms 101 tutorial. There are two versions of this tutorial: the classic 101 is for use with a physical device, while 101E is an alternative for the HoloLens Emulator. In my case I had to use the standard 101 version as I’m currently running a mix of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 on my various PCs and the HoloLens Emulator only works with Windows 10. I could upgrade to Windows 10 – or use it in a Hyper-V VM, I suppose – but as it hasn’t... Read more →

Over my first HoloLens hurdle

It took me longer than expected to get HoloLens working, on Friday night. Here are some thoughts that may or not be of use to others when they go through the same process. The initial tutorial was quite fun. A few parts of it were downright entertaining (I loved the coloured triangles, for instance). Device callibration was straightforward: you go through a few steps where you tell the device more about its position by holding up your finger a few times per eye. Entering any serious amount of text using HoloLens is painful: you need to gaze at each... Read more →

HoloLens is here!

I’m happy to report that a HoloLens device has arrived in the Neuchâtel office. I’m meant to be on holiday, next week, but as the kids are signed up for various fun activities of their own I foresee some amount of fooling around with HoloLens in my immediate future. :-) I was pleased to see a few HoloLens devices floating around at the recent Forge DevCon. In some cases it was inevitable – in that one of our speakers, Dona Sarkar, comes from the HoloLens team and also participated in the SFVR Meetup at the DevCon – but a... Read more →