Hologram Object Projection - Blend of AR and VR

As coronavirus cases have surged, so have the number of companies asking their employees to work from home, and technologies like Hologram Object Projection will prove as milestones in facilitating work from home by projecting users in a 3D space.

The Hologram is a Three Dimensional projection of an object that exists freely in space and is visible to everyone without the need for 3D glasses. Based on Mixed Reality, the concept is a combination of elements of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

Idea: Hologram Object Projection is a combination of AR and VR where AR creates the illusion that virtual objects are placed in the real world, and VR implies complete immersion experience in a virtual environment, i.e., creating a 3D simulated environment by shutting out the physical environment. It enables interaction of the real world with digital objects. It is based on realistic rendering, i.e., virtual objects are placed in the real world in such a manner that it looks as if they belong there itself. 

How It Works: The camera from the iPhone captures the person who is in the real world. This is taken as an input by the Body Tracked Entity that eliminates all the background images and takes out the person from the complete picture. From this Body Tracked Entity, all the Joint Transformations which have been captured from the person is fetched. These joint transformations are then broadcasted to other peer devices. There can be ‘n’ number of devices and can be projected at the very same time. For transferring these projections, the data packets are archived and compressed before the transfer happens to fetch the original Transformations. The Transformations are being sent to Hologram so that it can mimic the very same action.

Features:

• Language translation that translates from any language to any other.
• Captures 2D video

Technology:

• Reality Kit: It is the first framework for developing AR applications and is used for rendering photorealistic content.
• Reality Composer: It is a Mac and iOS tool that enables AR-based content creation. Pre visualizations of the virtual object can be done in the real world.
• ARKit: It is the mobile platform for developing AR applications on iOS.
• Machine Learning: It is used for learning the person’s actions and mimicking Hologram with the same.
• Google Translation API: API used for translation of text and speech from one language to another.

Use Cases:

• The Hologram broadcasting of a person can be done from one place to another. For example, A person giving a speech in a language in a country can have his/her Hologram mimicking the same actions in another language in some other country.
• Body postures are tracked frame by frame; hence single frame can be used for the processing of an image. It also can help in training for dance, martial arts to another location.
• Body movements can be tracked for health and fitness purposes like whether a person is doing sit-ups in the right posture can be determined through Hologram Object Projection.
• It can also be used for playing games. Like a virtual chessboard and chess pieces can be created, and the Hologram can interact with those pieces while playing.

Conclusion: Hologram Object Projection makes use of the latest technologies and eliminates the need for the physical presence of entities, be it sports, health, or entertainment. The idea is yet to explore more avenues and will undergo many transformations to make it more user-friendly.

Watch the demo video here