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Microsoft HoloLens By Example
Microsoft HoloLens By Example

Microsoft HoloLens By Example: Create immersive Augmented Reality experiences

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Microsoft HoloLens By Example

Tagging the World Using DirectX

One of the most significant advancements of HoloLens has little to do with the actual technology and more to do with where it is placed. Having a computer situated conveniently on your head lends itself to many interesting avenues. It means having a computer easily accessible any place and in any situation and, equally important, having a computer that is capable of seeing what you see and hearing what you hear. Smartphones have taken us to a paradigm where we have had always-on and always-connected computers, but this extends this concept even further, whereby our devices can be more aware of our situation, but of course this is only possible if the applications we build for these platforms take advantage of these opportunities. In this chapter, we start exploring this concept by way of example, whereby we will use Microsoft...

Creating a mixed reality app

Microsoft defines an MR application as an application developed for the Windows 10 Universal Platform, utilizing the holographic rendering, gaze, gesture, motion, and voice APIs. In this chapter, and in the next, we will focus on building MR applications using DirectX 11, C#, and SharpDX (C# wrapper for DirectX 11); alternatively, you can follow along using C++.

DirectX is a large topic (and one of many); it is not the intention of this book to cover DirectX, but to use it as a platform to illustrate the examples presented in this book. For a more comprehensive look at DirectX, for C#, I recommend Direct  3D Rendering Cookbook by Justin Stenning ( Direct3D Rendering Cookbook ).

We will start by walking through the Visual C# Holographic DirectX 11 App Template, focusing on sections related to HoloLens, before...

Project setup

Just to recap, the example for this chapter is about performing facial recognition and tagging the recognized person's name (or alias) into the scene. In this section, we will walk through setting up the Microsoft Cognitive Service, which will be responsible for facial detection and identification as well as preparing the dataset that we will use to perform facial identification, that is, photos of people you would like the service to recognize.

We will use one of the Cognitive Services Microsoft services, called Face API, from Face API. As the name implies, the service is orientated around detecting and identifying faces but also allows for some interesting metadata, such as the following:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Likelihood of smiling
  • Wearing glasses
  • Emotion (a measurement of happiness, sadness, and anger, along with many others)
  • Presence...

The project

It's been a while since we talked about the specifics for the example of this chapter, so let's quickly revise what we are trying to achieve before jumping to the project.

HoloLens includes a world-facing camera color mounted on the front of the device, which enables apps to see what the user sees. The example for this chapter is to create an application that captures what the user sees (the frames from this camera) and uses Microsoft's Cognitive Service Face API that we just set up to detect and identify faces. When a face is recognized, we will display their name along with a predicted age and gender. This example was based on the Microsoft's Holographic face tracking sample, which is available at https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-universal-samples/tree/master/Samples/HolographicFaceTracking.

Let's start by launching...

Summary

Congratulations for getting through this chapter. We have covered a lot and only just touched the surface on the topics of DirectX and MR applications, but hopefully enough to excite you. We first walked through the Visual C# DirectX 11 Holographic Template, pointing out some of the main components that are most relevant when developing for the HoloLens. We then built on top of the template, creating an AR application capable of detecting and identifying faces and rendering the details in scene.

As mentioned in the opening of this chapter; I hope this chapter has acted, in part, as a catalyst, sparking your imagination of the possibilities of MR applications. It doesn't take much to extend this example to something that can help the visually impaired better sense and understand their surroundings or help collapse cultural barriers by automatically...

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Key benefits

  • • Create awesome Augmented Reality (AR) apps for the Microsoft HoloLens platform
  • • Unleash the power of Unity SDK for HoloLens to create next generation AR apps
  • • Explore the exciting world of gesture control, visual mapping, voice command for apps, and many more cutting edge possibilities with HoloLens

Description

Are you a developer who is fascinated with Microsoft HoloLens and its capabilities? Do you want to learn the intricacies of working with the HoloLens SDK and create your own apps? If so, this is the book for you. This book introduces and demystifies the HoloLens platform and introduces new ways you can interact with computers (Mixed Reality). It will teach you the important concepts, get you excited about the possibilities, and give you the tools to continue exploring and experimenting. You will go through the journey of creating four independent examples throughout the book, two using DirectX and two using Unity. You will learn to implement spatial mapping and gesture control, incorporate spatial sound, and work with different types of input and gaze. You will also learn to use the Unity 5 SDK for HoloLens and create apps with it. Collectively, the apps explore the major concepts of HoloLens, but each app is independent, giving you the flexibility to choose where to start (and end).

Who is this book for?

This book is for developers who have some experience with programming in any of the major languages such as C#, C++, and so on. You do need any knowledge of Augmented Reality development.

What you will learn

  • ? Extend the computing experience beyond the flat glass screen by placing and embedding virtual objects holograms) into the physical world
  • ? Interact with the holograms using gaze, gestures, and voice
  • ? Enhance the experience with spatial sound
  • ? Allow multiple users to naturally collaborate with each other
  • ? Integrate voice commands into your own HoloLens projects
  • ? Experiment with techniques to better understand the real world
  • ? Implement a user interface in Mixed Reality
  • ? Blend the virtual and physical world by making the holograms interact and react to the physical environment

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Aug 31, 2017
Length: 406 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781787122369
Vendor :
Microsoft
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

What do you get with eBook?

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Product feature icon Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Product feature icon Access this title in our online reader with advanced features
Product feature icon DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

Product Details

Publication date : Aug 31, 2017
Length: 406 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781787122369
Vendor :
Microsoft
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

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Frequently bought together


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Microsoft HoloLens By Example
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Microsoft HoloLens Developer???s Guide
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HoloLens Beginner???s Guide
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Total $ 152.97 Stars icon

Table of Contents

9 Chapters
Enhancing Reality Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Tagging the World Using DirectX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Assistant Item Finder Using DirectX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building Paper Trash Ball in Unity Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building Paper Trash Ball Using Holotoolkit in Unity Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Interacting with Holograms Using Unity Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Collaboration with HoloLens Using Unity Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Developing a Multiplayer Game Using Unity Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Deploying Your Apps to the HoloLens Device and Emulator Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
(1 Ratings)
5 star 0%
4 star 100%
3 star 0%
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1 star 0%
Matt Xu Apr 09, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
this is the best book I ever read on the market for Hololens developing, but I have to say, this book is not for junior c# developer, you have to have some solid .net foundation to understand the code the book introduced.this book step by step uncovered how Hololens works on every core aspects, from the low level API to high level Holotoolkit, this is very valuableif you ever read the book "Programming Windows" by Charles Petzold, you will know this book uncover every core aspects of windows programming.this book <Microsoft HoloLens By Example> is Hololens' "Programming Windows",the reason I only give 4 stars is for lots of small mistakes existing in the sample code in the book, but since I am a senior c# developer, I can easily fix these bugs and make the programming running. I do hope the author can carefully check the code before put them into book lateranyway, this is a great book, I hope the author can publish the next version since Holotoolkit has changed lots after the book is published
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