From videocalls to video meetings with holograms

Microsoft aims to develop applications that will allow virtual meetings with mixed reality, useful for work, telemedicine and training.

From videocalls to video meetings with holograms

Microsoft aims to develop applications that will allow virtual meetings with mixed reality, useful for work, telemedicine and training.

Microsoft has presented Mesh, a cloud service (based on Microsoft Azure) to develop applications that will allow users to turn into holograms and share virtual objects in 3D, move and interact through their avatar, to make possible meetings through space, thanks to mixed, virtual and augmented reality. It did so at the Ignite 2021 digital conference, held in just this mode. Is already available a test app, for now usable only with HoloLens, but the goal of the project is to allow anyone to participate in virtual meetings even without an Ar or Vr visor, using the smartphone, tablet or pc.

Mixed reality: attending an event remotely as if you were face-to-face

The plan is to incorporate Mesh among the functionalities of Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365, but the application to business meeting is only the first of the possible scenarios. Further and very useful uses could include training and distance learning, telemedicine, co-design for architects, engineers or designers, scientific research, coordination of technical operations in difficult or distant environments, conferences and conventions, but also concerts and sports training. 
The company sees mixed reality as a clear direction for the future "Augmented reality will become mainstream among consumers and entrepreneurs, freeing screen-bound experiences into interactions in your space, between your objects with your people."

Avatars

Mesh will allow you to design your own avatar (at first, personal avatars will be taken from the Altspace Vr social network, acquired by Microsoft in 2017) and join the meeting as in a normal videocall, but also in a spatial sense: the avatar will be able to move its hands, head and body, talk to each participant. It will also be possible to import, show and manipulate three-dimensional holograms of ready-made objects or use 3D drawing tools to create new ones. 

Holoportation

The platform also supports "holoportation" a new type of technology that allows high-quality 3D models of people anywhere in the world to be reconstructed, compressed and transmitted in real time. When combined with mixed reality displays like HoloLens, this technology allows users to see, hear and interact with 3D participants remotely as if they were actually present in the same physical space. 
Thanks to it, people will be reproduced photorealistically and have the ability to appear in both a virtual space and mixed reality. 

According to some analysts, the Azure cloud platform (which now accounts for 17% of Microsfot's revenue sources) will soon become its largest business, overtaking Office in 2022.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator


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