Book Image

HoloLens Blueprints

By : Abhijit Jana, Manish Sharma, Mallikarjuna Rao
Book Image

HoloLens Blueprints

By: Abhijit Jana, Manish Sharma, Mallikarjuna Rao

Overview of this book

Do you want to create stunning applications with HoloLens? Are you a developer who is fascinated with Microsoft HoloLens and its capabilities? If so, this is the book for you. This book introduces and demystifies the HoloLens platform and shows you different ways of interaction with computers (mixed-reality). You will start your mixed-reality journey by understanding different types of digital reality. You will learn to build your first holographic app. Also, you will understand holographic application integration possibilities within Line of Business Applications using Azure. Moving ahead, you will create Integrated Solutions using IoT with HoloLens. Gradually you'll learn how to create and deploy apps on a device. You will learn to publish application to the store; if you are an enterprise developer, you will also manage and distribute applications for enterprise-enabled or domain-joined HoloLens. Finally, you will develop an end-to-end realistic holographic app, ranging from scenario identification to sketching, development, deployment, and, finally, production.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewer
Disclaimer
Customer Feedback
www.PacktPub.com
Dedication
Preface
7
Build End-to-End Retail Solution - Scenario Identification and Sketching

Preface

Digital reality brings immersive experiences, such as transporting you to different world or places, making you interact within those immersive, mixing digital experiences with reality, and ultimately, opening new horizons to make you more productive.

The spectrum and scenarios of digital reality are huge; to understand them better, they are broken down into three different categories: Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR).

Microsoft HoloLens is the most powerful mixed reality personal computing Windows device. It allows you to place your digital content in the real physical world, where it matters most to you. This is what is called an MR device, one that tries to blend the real and digital worlds seamlessly and provides new ways to visualize the world beyond the screens.

The boundaries between the real and the digital world start to blur, and you can interact with the digital world in a very similar way to how you would interact with the real, physical world. What is it about HoloLens that makes it stand out from the other devices in this genre? It is the fact that Microsoft HoloLens is the first fully untethered, self-contained computer running on Windows 10. Yes, that's right: no hassle of wires, additional cables, or connections to a computer or additional devices. It is hands-free, self-contained device with a built-in battery.

This book is mainly focused on the building mixed reality application using Microsoft HoloLens. This book doesn't require any prior knowledge about the holographic platform from the reader, and its strength is the simplicity in which the concepts have been presented using sketching, architecting, code snippets, a step-by-step process, and detailed descriptions. This book covers the following:

  • Understanding what mixed reality is and the possibilities of it
  • Understanding the process of developing enterprise holographic applications using HoloLens
  • Learning the application and interaction model for holographic apps
  • Understanding holographic application integration possibilities within Line of Business application using Azure
  • Learning by realistic integrated project examples
  • Learning end-to-end complex integrated solutions using holographic app and Azure

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Digital Reality - Under the Hood, begins your mixed-reality journey by explaining different types of digital realities, their differences, and usage scenarios. Also, it will explain the different market players and how they are different from each other based on their products. This chapter will also introduce you to the immersive HoloLens device and show you how to take a step further with the device.

Chapter 2, HoloLens - the Most Natural Way to Interact, introduces HoloLens as a hardware device. You will get an insight into the different components that make up HoloLens and the technology behind the device, which makes the components work together. This chapter also gives an overview of holograms and ways to interact with holograms with different interaction models. You will also become familiar with HoloLens Application Model and take a step toward developing holographic applications by understanding the team structures and roles required.

Chapter 3, Explore HoloLens as Hologram - Scenario Identification and Sketching, dives into the development process of developing your first holographic application. You will learn about identifying the scenario and the interaction models required within that scenario, such as how the user will interact with gaze, gesture, and other interaction models. You will also learn how to identify 3D Assets and take a quick overview of creating new 3D Assets.

Chapter 4, Explore HoloLens as Hologram - Developing Application and Deploying on Device, further enhances the scene developed in the preceding chapter and adds new life to it by developing different interaction models using scripting, building interaction model scripts, and testing them in Unity3D and holographic emulators. Finally, you deploy the application on a device and test your first holographic application, and visualize hologram interactions with the real world.

Chapter 5, Remote Monitoring of Smart Building(s) Using HoloLens Scenario Identification and Sketching, teaches you how to identify and design real-world integrated scenarios. You will integrate Azure IoT solutions with holographic application and visualize the data feed coming in near real time from the cloud through holograms. You will learn about integration scenario options, architecture, and the interaction models required within this scenario.

Chapter 6, Remote Monitoring of Smart Building(s) Using HoloLens - Developing Application and Deploying on Device, takes you through integration scenario identified in the preceding chapter, shows you how to implement and develop the holographic application, and explain how to integrate it with IoT system hosted on Azure. You will learn how to pull the data from the IoT system and render 3D assets on the holographic application based on the data. In this chapter, you will build interaction model scripts, test them in Unity and emulators, and finally deploy them on a device and test your first integrated application.

Chapter 7, Build End-to-End Retail Solution - Scenario Identification and Sketching, will teach you how to identify and design end-to-end retail solutions. You will sketch a solution to design your home appliances with virtual holograms. Then, you will place an order directly from the holographic application.

Chapter 8, Build End-to-End Retail Scenario - Developing Application and Deploying on Device, will take the retail scenario identified in the preceding chapter and implement and develop its holographic application. It will integrate it with backend services hosted on Azure. You will learn how to pull the data from the backend system, render 3D Assets on the fly, and place an order within holographic application. Here, you will build interaction model scripts, test them in Unity and emulators, and finally deploy them on a device and test your end-to-end retail application.

Chapter 9, Possibilities, outlines the new possibilities and scenarios with mixed reality and HoloLens.

Chapter 10, Microsoft HoloLens in Enterprise, looks at managing enterprise devices, such as adding them onto enterprise domains, managing updates, application distribution, and other device management features, such as managing devices through Microsoft Intune.

What you need for this book

The basic requirements for this book are as follows:

  • Unity3D - 5.5 or higher
  • Visual Studio 2015 (Update 3) or higher
  • HoloLens emulator
  • Optional requirements:
    • Autodesk Maya
    • Adobe Photoshop
    • HoloLens device

Refer to Chapter 03, Explore HoloLens as Hologram - Scenario Identification and Sketching, for detailed information on the development environment setup.

Who this book is for

This book is intended to help experienced developers and designers start working on mixed reality development using Microsoft HoloLens. This book is also useful for entrepreneurs who are planning to build a team of the following:

  • Developers/professionals
  • Designers
  • Entrepreneurs who are planning to build a team for mixed reality development

This book uses C# and Unity3D Scripting (C#) in the examples, so you need to know the basics of C# and scripting within Unity3D. You should be familiar with Visual Studio IDE and Unity Editor as well. You don't have to know anything about the HoloLens as a device.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "By default, the FloorInteractionManager class is inherited from MonoBehaviour. MonoBehaviour is the base class from which every Unity script derives. In the next step, implement IFocusable interface in the FloorInteractionManager class. "

A block of code is set as follows:

    //On Start, create WWW object and link it with Steaming URL   
    void Start() {
        webObject = new WWW(videoUrl);
        guiTexture = GetComponent<GUITexture>();
        guiTexture.texture = webObject.movie;
    }

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Once the basic design is done, tag all the text controls as BuildingTitle, FireText, Temp Text, and SmokeText for Main Title, Fire, Temperature, and Smoke elements, respectively."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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