Windows Holographic is a mixed reality platform for developers. Developer can leverage the Holographic API  with Windows 10 to built the apps through holographic experience. Microsoft HoloLens is the holographic device that lets you create holograms, objects made of light and sound that appear in the world around you.

This looks just as if they are real objects around you and you can interact with them using  gaze, gestures and voice commands. Interesting !! Yes, of course ! This is the new era of development and it’s like building the future.

Over the past few years I worked extensively with the amazing device Kinect for Windows and as always, I “’Thank You” for your continues encouragement on my work that I shared over past years and for sharing very positive feedback on my Kinect for Windows SDK Programming Book.  Now, for me it is time to take step ahead and explore the new device HoloLens, and I will keep continue sharing cool stuff over here based on my learning.  To start with, this post is all about getting started with the development with HoloLens.

Here is the series of Post :

1. Start Building Holographic Apps with Microsoft HoloLens
2. Bringing Your Universal Windows Apps to Microsoft HoloLens
3. Run an existing Universal Windows App (UWP) Package with HoloLens Emulator
4. Developing Holographic Apps with Unity 3D and Microsoft HoloLens
5. Projecting your Holographic apps in a Real Space Surroundings using HoloLens Emulator
6. Understanding the Gaze and Adding a Gaze Input Cursor into your Unity 3D Holographic App
7. Understanding the Gesture and Adding Air Tap Gesture into your Unity 3D Holographic App
8. Visualizing Spatial Mapping of a Real Space in your Holographic App using HoloLens Emulator

The HoloLens SDK was just made available during  //Build Conference.  And the Development Kit also starts  shipping to developers who are already opt for it.  But, for now you don’t need to worry even if you don’t  have the devices in your hand ! You can start building the application with Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 and the HoloLens Emulator.   The emulator works really well; and you can easily simulate gazing, the gestures , even the speech recognition etc.

Image Source : https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/hologram

Development Environment

Following are the list of items that you ensure to have it installed get it started.

• HoloLens Development Kit / Device  ( Order Here )
• Install Visual Studio 2015 – Update 2
• HoloLens Emulator
• Unity HoloLens Technical Preview Beta 10

Refer Install the tools for details of installation check list and system requirements.

Building Different Types of Apps

Holographic Apps uses the Universal Windows Platform, and all the Universal Apps can be run on Microsoft HoloLens.  On the other hand, to built the holographic 3D elements using Unity. So, here is the option you can choose for.

• Building Universal Windows Application; and run it like a 2D which uses Holographic API for accessibility.

Building a rich, real world 3D holographic elements and use Holographic API’s for them.  To get start with Unity is perfect fit and and that’s why we installed Unity HoloLens SDK toolkit) .

Image Source: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/

Development Skills Set

What skills do I need to start building the apps for HoloLens ? Of course this could be your first question !  Well, if you are Microsoft Stack developer building Universal Apps, Device Apps using C# you are all set to go.   Adding Unity 3D in your skill set is an added and huge advantages for building 3D applications.

So here is the list of things that I think of, will help you to get you started building apps for HoloLens

• Visual Studio 2015
• .NET
• Universal Windows Platforms (UWP) App development with C# and XAML
• Unity 3D / 3D Modeling
• Building Game with Unity 3D  & Writing C# Script.

While above list will let you get started there are lot of things like Audio, Video, Mixing , which we can get into very slowly.  Watch this Video to get a quick glance …

Microsoft HoloLens: Developers Discuss Team Skills for Development

Getting Started Resources

• HoloLens Development Overview
• Documentation
• HoloLens Academy

Discussion Forum

HoloLens App Development Discussion Forum

• https://forums.hololens.com/

Connect @ Social

Here is the few twitter handler to follow and get regular updates on HoloLens

• HoloLens
• Clemente Giorio
• HoloLens Develop

…And… There are many more..but at least this will get you started and helping your first app to built and run on the HoloLens Emulator.

Thanks,

Abhijit