Categories
AR / VR HoloLens Windows

More Realistic HoloLens Spectator View Photos

When capturing a Mixed Reality scene through HoloLens Spectator View, the resulting photos and videos look amazing. But how to make them more realistic? The right blending mode in Photoshop helps.

Are Spectator View Photos Real?

Of course, the captured Spectator View photo is in many ways different to what you see in HoloLens. First off, it’s only 2D; in the HoloLens, you’d see a real 3D hologram. In this area, the live HoloLens view is much more impressive.

On the other hand, the actual resolution and field of view of the HoloLens is less than a (potentially) 20 Megapixel+ Unity rendering that shows holograms all around you. But the field of view is difficult and somehow unnecessary to simulate as we’re looking on the scene from a 3rd person perspective.

Categories
AR / VR HoloLens Windows

How to add Negative Shadows to a HoloLens Scene

Shadows are immensly important for the perception of Augmented Reality scenes. If the holographic 3D object that is placed in the real world has a shadow, it fits better to the world, and users have a better understanding of its placement in the world. This is the result of the study I’ve done some time ago, detailled in the blog posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. How to apply this to Microsoft HoloLens? Negative Shadows are the answer.

HoloLens and Holographic Shadows?

For the HoloLens, rendering shadows is special. The HoloLens displays are light-based – as such, they can add light to a real-world scene. However, they cannot reduce light or darken parts of the real world. If you add a traditional dark shadow to a scene, it simply won’t be visible in the HoloLens.