Developing the same code for both HoloLens and an IHMD

hmiri

I understand the exact same code could be used for both HoloLens and an IHMD device and the only thing you would need to do is check the option in the project settings that says something like Occluded Devices. Is this true?

Has anybody on this forum set up a Unity project and imported the MRTK packages and then developed an application that would run on both HoloLens and an IHMD device? Is it really just a matter of unplugging this and plugging the other one and then ticking the occluded device checkbox and it all runs fine?

Currently, I have neither a Win10Pro machine nor a device, so I cannot develop, but I thought I should know the answer to such fundamental questions before I decide whether I should target both devices.

Thanks in advance

mtaulty

Yes, that's possible - you can find an old 'hello world' style example of this in this blog post but please keep in mind that the tooling (Unity) and the toolkit (MRTK) have moved on since I wrote that post and/or made that screen capture recording.

While it's technically possible to 'target both', you need to think about the experience in that there are differences between HoloLens and the other immersive headsets including;

• HoloLens lets you wander freely, immersive headsets generally don't (unless you put a PC in a backpack) and so mechanisms like teleporting become more common and there's a need to consider the seated/standing setups.
• In HoloLens, you can see the real world, under immersion you can't so you're likely to bring in models of a world/environment.
• HoloLens has hand/gesture input whereas in immersive you might be using controllers or gamepads.
• HoloLens can spatially map the real-world around it whereas immersive headsets can't.
• HoloLens is guaranteed to have microphone/speakers whereas an immersive headset might not.
• HoloLens has an accessible webcam and (in special mode) depth camera on it whereas the immersive headsets don't.
• HoloLens is a mobile device whereas immersive headsets are tethered to a PC which has met a baseline of requirements around CPU/GPU/Memory etc.

and, no doubt, there are some more that I've missed from the list and there are areas of the toolkit that can help you abstract these differences in terms of things like input, boundaries, etc. to make it easier to handle both types of device.

I hope that helps - have fun in your development

mtaulty

Yes, that's possible - you can find an old 'hello world' style example of this in this blog post but please keep in mind that the tooling (Unity) and the toolkit (MRTK) have moved on since I wrote that post and/or made that screen capture recording.

While it's technically possible to 'target both', you need to think about the experience in that there are differences between HoloLens and the other immersive headsets including;

• HoloLens lets you wander freely, immersive headsets generally don't (unless you put a PC in a backpack) and so mechanisms like teleporting become more common and there's a need to consider the seated/standing setups.
• In HoloLens, you can see the real world, under immersion you can't so you're likely to bring in models of a world/environment.
• HoloLens has hand/gesture input whereas in immersive you might be using controllers or gamepads.
• HoloLens can spatially map the real-world around it whereas immersive headsets can't.
• HoloLens is guaranteed to have microphone/speakers whereas an immersive headset might not.
• HoloLens has an accessible webcam and (in special mode) depth camera on it whereas the immersive headsets don't.
• HoloLens is a mobile device whereas immersive headsets are tethered to a PC which has met a baseline of requirements around CPU/GPU/Memory etc.

and, no doubt, there are some more that I've missed from the list and there are areas of the toolkit that can help you abstract these differences in terms of things like input, boundaries, etc. to make it easier to handle both types of device.

I hope that helps - have fun in your development