Oh, patents! Hololens (2)

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Are you wondering how the Hololens possibly works --beaming in avatars or enabling collaborators to walk around a virtual object that is superimposed on the real world? Any pair of 3D glasses lets you see virtual objects, but walking around them to see them from all angles, including from the rear, is a Hololens feature.

Moving about to visualize the back of a hologram is a feature of the Hololens recited in US20150317831(A1) titled Transitions between body-locked and world-locked augmented reality. In a nutshell, the virtual object appearing on the see-through Hololens display as a volumetric hologram may be body-locked in 2D video mode, as it moves with the user around the room, or it may be anchored in the spatial mapping of the real-world in 3D, enabling the user to walk around it, the transitions from one state to another occurring via animation, and according to certain events. Thus, in the body-locked position, the hologram moves relative to the real world. In the real world-locked position, the user moves relative to the object.

The abstract of this invention is included below, together with patent figures 5 and 6, showing the two locked positions of holographic objects, respectively real-world locked in Fig. 5 and body-locked in Fig. 6.  

Various embodiments relating to controlling a see-through display are disclosed. In one embodiment, virtual objects may be displayed on the see-through display. The virtual objects transition between having a position that is body-locked and a position that is world-locked based on various transition events.

The Orinox-AvevaYoutube video included below shows how the Hololens is used to visualize an engineering plant in holographic 3D, Enlarged, and Full-scale sizes, including labels with datasheet details. 

References

Microsoft Hololens

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens