Evolution of Volumetric Capture
Haptic Hongi, Reiterated
Four years after the first table in Brisbane, the project came back to SIGGRAPH Asia, this time in Sydney, on a Magic Leap 2, with a capture pipeline light enough to fit in a suitcase. The final post in this series, with a look back at how far volumetric capture came between 2019 and 2023.
Evolution of Volumetric Capture
Haptic Hongi: A Greeting You Can Feel
In a hongi, noses and foreheads press together and breath is shared. You cannot do that with a hologram, unless you bolt a shape memory alloy actuator to the headset and let it press back. Part three of the volumetric capture series, where the work gains a sense of touch.
Pinning a Biomechanical Model to a Lump of Silicone
The breast group at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute had spent years building mathematical models of how breast tissue deforms. My job was to get one of those models out of the solver and onto a silicone phantom sitting on a desk, seen through a HoloLens 2, and to make it stay there.
Meet Biscuit, a Dog That Isn't There
A low-poly golden retriever that lives in your room instead of on a screen. Built on a HoloLens 2 in 2021 to find out whether a virtual pet stops feeling like software once it has somewhere to stand.
Remote Collaboration
Volumetric Training
Four ways to show somebody how to service a motorcycle engine, compared head to head. A volumetric recording of the instructor beat an avatar, a hand, and an annotation on almost everything that mattered.
Evolution of Volumetric Capture
First Contact : XR for Good
An art installation that uses various modes of Extended Reality (XR) to support social engagement and generate connections with a view to reversing processes of societal atomisation and intercultural discomfort (racism).
Remote Collaboration
Pointing With Sound
Every visual cue fails the moment the thing you need is behind you. Putting the remote expert's voice in 3D, and adding audio beacons, solved a problem the visual work could not.
Remote Collaboration
Which Cue Is Actually Doing the Work?
Eight depth cameras, a Magic Leap on one head and a Vive Pro on another, and a study designed to separate eye gaze from hand gesture instead of shipping them as a bundle. The answer was not the one the gaze research predicted.
Evolution of Volumetric Capture
Come to the Table
It started with a kitchen table in New Zealand and a question from artist Mairi Gunn: can XR help strangers from different cultures actually meet? We recorded real conversations volumetrically and took the table to SIGGRAPH Asia 2019. This is the first post in a series tracing four years of that work.
Remote Collaboration
Wearable RemoteFusion
Four depth cameras stitching a live 3D model of a room, so a remote expert can walk around your workspace instead of watching a video of it. The first system of my PhD, and the study that showed the two people in a call want opposite things.
The Sandbox That Draws Its Own Contours
A short-throw projector and a depth camera turn a box of sand into a live topographic map. Built for Te Papa during the Mahuki accelerator, out of timber from my weekend job at PlaceMakers.
MagicMirror
Final Touches
The Mirror is finally ready. A satisfying end to one of the most interesting projects to date.