Holoportation is a new type of 3D capture technology that allows high-quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed, compressed and transmitted anywhere in the world in real time. At present we can use it with a device that supports augmented reality, the hololens. Using this technology we can call any person and view them in 3D space wherever you point the display towards. It gives you a more personal feel towards communication between people which is the main purpose this was intended for.
I was pleased to find this technology. We are right now one step closer to the future to having 3D crime scene investigations. No I am just joking, but it is one of the possibilities. This technology can be also be used to save the communication videos in memory which can be viewed later that can be incredibly powerful to bring back some emotional memories. The base for this is 3D video recording and even better is 3D recording of people far away from each other which has been achieved Microsoft.
What was surprising was to see the 3D recording device in the back of a car to record and make live holographic video calls. The power required was brought down to 30-50 Mbps which was 90% reduction of the power used initially. In comparison out smart phones use 15 – 40 Mbps. Laptops, televisions, and gaming systems, can take from 5 Mbps to 75 Mbps. It adds up fast.
Currently WiFi connection is required to make the device work but the developers at Microsoft say the technology can soon be operated in mobile data which is very exciting!
To capture a good holographic video with depth 2 cameras are required. But the more cameras that are there the better for capturing. This is the first of its kind device and more improvements are on its way.
The uses of this are wide ranging. When you are missing someone dearly you can use this to physically see them instead of doing a normal video call. Even the video shown in Microsoft’s holoportation page shows a similar kind of emotional touch.
It can be used in meetings, which can be the same as the people sitting in the same room. In healthcare where the senior patients can’t be moved and the doctor has a lot of patients to attend, hence travelling is not an option, a person can act as a medium to transport the hololens to different places to help the patient see the doctor and vice versa. Also we can have holographic video surveillance where the exact occlusion present in normal videos can be overcome. The uses are countless.
The cons are that technology requires us to wear the hololens which can be a huge bulky equipment on the head. The video recording mainly depends on the cameras that are available and is not 100% clear. A good example of this is as seen in the test run here. It still has a long way to go.
Recently another company called DoubleMe teamed up with The University of Surrey 5G Innovation Center (5GIC) to secure the grant by the Institute for Information & Communications technology Promotion (IITA), an R&D strategy and planning agency under the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning in South Korea. They have achieved the same effect that Microsoft’s holoportation did with just one camera and a PC. The quality is poorer as compared to the former but they definitely can do better is there was more cameras.
It is nice to imagine this technology without hololens and just a holographic projection of the person. That is the future that aims to be achieved. Can you see the technology you might have in 10 years? Just over 10 years ago the iphone was first invented. VR wasn’t even through about by then. We have come a long way and there is a long way ahead.