If you’ve been following this blog or our Twitter feed, you’ll know Stimulant was included in the first wave of deliveries for the HoloLens developer edition. Unlike some of the gadgets that come our way, this one definitely hasn’t been sitting around in a drawer. We’ve got four rough experiments to share with you, some of which could be applicable to your real-world smart space project.
01 — Wayfinding
Complex environments like warehouses, medical facilities, and factories can be tough and occasionally dangerous to navigate, and time spent searching for the right room or object is time and productivity lost. The HoloLens’ awareness of its position in space, the augmented display, and support for voice commands is one way to solve that.
02 — Spatialized Audio
Dipping into mixed reality means there can be virtual objects all around, above, and beneath your (limited) field of view. Without the benefit of peripheral vision, one way of drawing attention to objects that aren’t in front of you is spatial audio. Sounds and music can appear to emanate from an object in virtual space. If the object is far away, the sound is quieter. If it’s behind you or to the side, it sounds like it’s coming from that direction.
03 — Visualizing Metadata
Objects in reality always have more to them than we can see with our eyes. Products have prices, food has nutritional information, people have demographic data. An augmented display paired with knowledge of real-world objects can reveal this hidden data as overlays as needed. In this demo, we overlaid our team’s calendar availability above their desks, so we can literally see at a glance where people are in their day.
04 — Visualizing Tracked Movement
Along with HoloLens, we’ve also been experimenting with OpenPTrack as a solution for tracking the positions of people in space over time. We recorded the data created by people walking through the space, and played it back on the HoloLens, enabling the wearer to see the complete context of a person’s path through an environment.
It’s plain to see that we’re pretty excited about HoloLens and the possibilities for this device and mixed reality in general. If any of these ideas inspire applications for your smart space, get in touch or or tweet at us to continue the discussion.
