Microsoft Opens its Windows Holographic Developer Portal
Creating holographic applications is going to be challenging. In preparation for shipment of its HoloLens Development Edition hardware at the end of March, Microsoft has opened its new Windows Holographic developer portal to help those getting started. Text on the portal’s developer overview section explains that HoloLens is a Universal Windows Platform. The developer needs to develop “holographic apps,” all of which are Universal Windows apps. Conversely, all Universal Windows apps can be adapted for presentation on Microsoft HoloLens.
Developing for HoloLens requires more than new software. The paradigm is different and this requires new terminology. For example, in Augmented Reality, developers describe and develop experiences within the real world. An interactive scene is the real world and the experience runs within it. In HoloLens the real world and hologram are referred to as the “shell” or the “mixed world.” The platform documentation also introduces concepts such as persistence of holograms. To keep some things familiar, Microsoft has extended Cortana, the desktop or mobile phone user’s personal assistant, for use on HoloLens.
The first of the eight planned tutorials in a dedicated “Holographic Academy” on Unity as well many other topics, focuses on the HoloLens Emulator (only 44 seconds published at the time of this post). A developer discussion forum is also provided in the portal. It will be interesting to see how much Microsoft will need to add in order to keep the developer ecosystem pushing the envelope once it has the new hardware to test.