Fantastic films and TV programs have long introduced us to the holograms that have taken on the appearance of many characters, including Princess Leia and the Doctor in the series Star Trek. Voyager. "
In these 3D images, what captures us the most is that they are next to us, in the same space and you can interact with them, which is impossible with either video or photos.
Holograms begin to help people outside the fictional world. They are translators, teachers and custodians of memory in real life.
“Our children are the first generation to start counting on spatial 3D volume content,” said Jason Vaski, creative director of Mixed Reality Capture Studio in San Francisco, where the company creates holograms for a variety of purposes.
“If you look, people are attracted to holograms for the same reason that they want to see their video in color and sound. Because holograms accurately reflect the world and our sense of space. A real-size hologram is in the room next to you, but it can be the same as it is now or what it used to be in the past. And it makes a strong impression. We continue to work to recreate the world around us with maximum accuracy, but now we need to add depth. Wherever you expect to see a video, you can also count on a truly 3D image. ”
Microsoft Studios pave the way for a voluminous future. How these technologies work can be seen in the Ashley Graham: Unfiltered project of The New York Times, at the latest British Open Championship and Madonna's 2019 Billboard Music Awards performance, which was accompanied by holographic versions of her past incarnations.
“Our goal is to empower authors and developers to create what they want,” says Vaski. - When we look at Microsoft's developments in this area and the future of human-computer interaction, it becomes obvious that spatial solutions will be used. They allow us to make eye contact, become even more real. "
Jason Waskey, Creative Director, Mixed Reality Capture Studio, San Francisco
The first professional video production studios with all the necessary decorations appeared in 2010 in Redmond, Washington. Now headquartered in San Francisco. Now the site is equipped with high-resolution cameras with advanced features.
At present, a special ultramodern pavilion is being constructed in Redmond, where souvenir holograms will be created for corporate visitors of the new Industry Experience Center (IEC) Microsoft. The recently opened center is a demonstration site measuring more than 2000 square meters. meters, which presents almost 100 real-life examples of how, using Microsoft technology, customers and partners innovate in their business and radically change markets. In addition, partner studios operate in London and Los Angeles, and an operational shooting platform in New York.
The main studio in San Francisco has 106 infrared and RGB cameras that can shoot a person 360 degrees. Stylists and makeup artists work. During filming, clients are dressed, looking, and moving like they usually do in everyday life.
One of Microsoft's executives, Julia White, made her own hologram and showed it at a recent conference. She talked with the audience in her usual voice, moved back and forth, turned and, as usual, gestured with her hands. But at one unexpected moment on the stage next to Julia, her hologram appeared and continued the report, but in Japanese!
“We're moving the camera around you, not the other way around,” says Vaski. “This is a very similar process to creating a video, but in the end you get a hologram.”
This process combines the development of several different areas of the company and common initiatives. Recently, Azure cloud technologies have been added to this alliance to maximize work progress.
“One of the most important technologies is a way to compress data and package the results,” says Steve Sullivan, general manager of Mixed Reality Capture Studio. - Other providers often face the problem of heavy files that are difficult to transfer to consumers. We can compress them to the file sizes that Netflix broadcasts. Therefore, wherever you can technically run Netflix, you can display our holograms. This allows us to run holograms on the phone, the Internet, HoloLens, etc. “We have players on all major hardware and platforms, and that means that any author or artist who wants to create contact with the audience, we can give this opportunity.”
“The Azure cloud is a new element,” says Sullivan, “giving the company and its partners the benefits of scalability and wider reach. It allows you to process more data, more content, and more flexible than on-site visualization systems. In addition, it even gives them the opportunity to provide additional services to other providers of data recording, if the latter prefer to work on their own infrastructure.
“Even when data is recorded using a different technology, manufacturers and developers can still process their data in the Azure stream using our compression and playback ecosystems, which undoubtedly gives them more options,” Sullivan continues to share.
Now this technology will be used at two mobile pavilions to work at less formal events. Such packaged configurations are easier to deploy and take advantage of cloud technology, and do not require the cost of colossal computing power of local data centers. Mobile recording studios have fewer cameras (64 instead of 106), are lighter in weight and are specially designed for transport.
“This provides a great opportunity to be where the action takes place,” Vaski comments, referring to events such as the British Open Golf Tournament, in which Dimension showed golfers' shots.
“When we look at sports as a concrete plan of events, we usually see them from a very flat angle. Golf is truly a spatial sport in which it is necessary and important to describe the type of arc, the reciprocating movement made by the player, and the whole series of movements made during a hit on the ball. Each golfer in his own way is unique in the way he carries out all these movements. One of our partners, Dimension, was able, using a mobile platform and the power of Azure to process a huge amount of data, to show those angles of golfers that are usually too dangerous to shoot. "
The feeling is that you are standing right in front of him. You give a close-up on which the golfer’s hands are visible and how exactly the club hits the ball. All this is unsafe if you shoot with a traditional 2D camera.
Some companies, including Dimension in London and Metastage in Los Angeles, are acquiring a Microsoft technology stack license. Some have their own pavilions. Customers come to them to shoot content for video production, and Microsoft offers tools and modules that give them more options. In addition, Microsoft provides services for customers of these studios, which is already included in the payment.
The proliferation of such mobile pavilions is a road to the future in which memories, educational opportunities and entertainment fully penetrate our world, and do not leave us passive observers.
Sullivan is already looking forward to the near future, when instead of photographs of the first day at school, which you carefully hang on the refrigerator, you will have annual holograms. And with the increasing penetration of such a shooting option into our lives, according to Sullivan, holographic recordings of family vacations or other important milestones in human life will become the norm.
He says that “ready-made technological solutions have already arrived”, but affordability, price and an efficient consumer ecosystem are not yet quite ready, in a cultural sense, either.
“Even in small amounts, it really changes your perception and feeling of certain moments,” he says, “because the hologram is a more authentic and complete picture of them than any photo and video can give.”