In an earlier blog I included a video of how Microsoft made holographic videos for the Hololens. I mistakenly said that they used 106 synchronised cameras. It was actually 160 cameras as anyone viewing that video may have spotted. However over the past year, the Microsoft Holoportation team have improved on this substantially, as demonstrated in the following two video’s. Stand by to be amazed!!!

Terry, “Thank you for your interest in Holoportation. At this time it is a research project and not available for use outside Microsoft, but perhaps that will change in the future. Stay tuned to    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/holoportation-3/     for any updates. Best regards, Ben Cutler, The Holoportation Team”

Despite these dramatic improvements, sadly holographic video with the Hololens is still beyond my capabilities to include in my MA project. This is solely because Hololens uses point cloud technology (as in CGI), and not 3D stereoscopic video. So I sought alternatives (I don’t give up easily).

I looked at other available or soon to the market mixed reality glasses that support viewing 3D stereoscopic video (as opposed to just 2D 360 degree stereoscopic film). The best of these is from ODG, But unfortunately, not available until late 2017. so after our MA show.

So where do I go now? Well, I am attending the following AR/VR/MR shows to see if there is anything else around:

Virtual Reality Show – 20-22 April, Business Design Centre, London

Augmenting Reality – 26 April, UCL London

VR World – 16 May, Olympia, London

TechXLR8 – 13-16 June, Excel, London

In the meantime, I will have to put my Vuze 3D 360 degree camera (delivery expected 11 April) to one side, as I do not have a mixed reality means of showing these videos for my MA show project. I could show them on my Google Cardboard or HTC Vive but both are Virtual Reality headsets and will not allow the other two layers (see earlier blogs) of my exhibit to be seen at the same time. Shame.

So I am practising green screen filming and editing with the intention of either adding actors to my background (seagulls diving in the sea) or projecting them separately against a black or grey background.

If the latter, I am investigating the possibility of projecting the seagull video into netting hanging from the ceiling. But that depends on the room I will be using at the MA show in Wilson Road.

That’s it for now.