Overview
Vuforia Engine enhances HoloLens' capability by allowing you to connect AR experiences to specific images and objects in the environment. You can use this capability to overlay step-by-step instructions on top of machinery or to add digital features to a physical product.
Introduction
Based on your product's or machinery's CAD data, HoloLens can robustly detect these 3D objects in the environment using Vuforia Model Targets technology. Augmented overlays can be authored directly against the CAD model so that your field workers see them right where you placed them.
Enterprise developers can use VuMarks to uniquely identify each piece of machinery on a factory floor, right down to the serial number. Additionally, VuMarks can be scaled into the billions and designed to look just like a company logo.
Existing Vuforia Engine apps built for phones and tablets can be configured in Unity to run on HoloLens. You can even use Vuforia Engine to take your new HoloLens app to Windows tablets, such as the ones listed here.
The Role of Extended Tracking
Extended Tracking maintains tracking even when a target is no longer in view. It applies to all targets when Device Tracking is enabled. For HoloLens applications, Device Pose tracking is started automatically in Unity; in native applications, you need to start it manually.
Vuforia Engine automatically fuses the poses from camera tracking and HoloLens's spatial tracking to provide stable target poses independent of whether the target is seen by the camera.
The following is a high-level description of the process:
- Vuforia Engine’s Observers recognize the target.
- Target tracking is then initialized.
- The position and rotation of the target are analyzed to provide a robust pose estimate for HoloLens.
- Vuforia Engine transforms the target's pose into the HoloLens spatial mapping coordinate space.
- HoloLens takes over tracking if the target is no longer in view. Whenever you look again at the target, Vuforia Engine will continue to track the images and objects accurately.
Targets that are detected but no longer in view are reported as EXTENDED_TRACKED. In these cases, the DefaultObserverEventHandler script used on all targets continues to render augmentation content. You can control this behavior by implementing a custom Observer event handler script.
Performance management on HoloLens
One consideration developers keep in mind when creating AR experiences for the HoloLens devices is the hardware capabilities of the devices. Intensive graphics, physics, and animations affect how long an AR app can run. Vuforia offers ways to manage the framerate and performance on the device depending on the use of static targets or targets that are expected to be moved around.
Developing a Vuforia app for HoloLens
The best way to understand the structure of a Vuforia Engine HoloLens project is by installing and building the Digital Eyewear Sample. The sample provides a complete HoloLens project with pre-configured deployable scenes and settings. Running the project will give you a starting point and reference for your Vuforia HoloLens apps.