Does anyone know whether ‘Model Slipping’ has been resolved in the HoloLens 2, Trimble SiteVision/Catalyst? Or, if Microsoft MRTK World Locking works better than Spatial Anchors? Or Microsoft Mesh?
I recently began playing around with SketchUp Viewer for HoloLens 1 again (after not being able to find it for some time to reinstall!) and decided to test model slippage on a smaller scale with a “Hologram Tool” on the miter saw. Same model slippage issue as with larger models. Has model slip been resolved for HoloLens 1?
This is Aris from the SketchUp team.
It would be great if you could share the file with me and I could try to reproduce your video with HL2 (without the saw) and see if the problem persists.
Fair warning: these are probably very boring except to those with a lot of interest in ‘Mixed Reality’.
I share all of that because the model itself was about as simple as could be and probably of no interest (except that, since black doesn’t show up, I used the Tape Measure Tool instead of the markings I made on the ‘AR Tool’, which is a problem in itself to solve). I have other videos of trying to line-up hologram tools to make cuts with a circular saw - just a simple rectangular shape colored red of a length I might have cut.
Shutter and slippage have to do with lost tracking. I’m fairly certain I could have made some improvement by clearing the HoloLens Mesh and scanning the work bench and saw (instead I drew the model on the computer with the HoloLens with me to upload and then walked into the ‘shop’ without taking any steps to get a really good mesh. As an aside -but rather amazingly- the HoloLens 1 could track holograms & mesh through the enclosed cab of a CAT machine. Yes, slippage was an issue.
Going back to my question and background - I had put the HoloLens away for a while after much fiddling and messing around and just wondered if some of these problems had been resolved (I was testing something that I thought would fail, but wanted to just try it anyway)? I thought maybe targets (Vuforia) are outside of the SU scope for discussion here and am wondering if HoloLens 1 with Catalyst solves shutter and shift, if the HoloLens 2 is a better place to pick up at, etc.
I’m trying to get back up to speed but I don’t know which way to go!
Thank you for sharing this information.
If I may ask, how did you record these videos? Did you use the video capture from Hololens?
Did the sliding occur always, or only when you were recording?
One thing to note is that recording with Hololens keeps one of the cameras busy, and might therefore undermine the quality of anchoring and tracking.
I have tried to align a simple model with an object using SketchUp Viewer for Hololens 2 and the sliding did not occur (and the table I have placed the object on features a fully reflective surface btw). However, when I recorded the session the tracking was somewhat less accurate as I moved around (see video here).
If you are looking for more accurate alignment on site, I would also suggest Trimble Connect for Hololens 2. I do not believe this is available for Hololens 1 any longer but you can watch the videos below to better understand how the alignment works:
Having watched some of your videos I find your workflow quite exciting. If you would like to discuss some of the pain points you outlined above but also talk to me and the SketchUp team about your workflow, mixed reality, and how our solutions can help you now or in the future, please let me know and I will send you a link to pick a suitable time.
“Hey, Cortana, start recording”, using the HoloLens1.
Good question, good point. It didn’t occur to me that I was making the problem worse by attempting to document it. The problem did occur when I was not recording. But I now have no way of determining how much worse I may have made it. I tested a number of situations: darkness (house-sized models, small cuts with circular saw), inside moving glass enclosed cab of track machine, clearing meshes - all sorts of things to test the limits of tracking. I felt I had to figure out what it could do to know what Hologram Tools I could try to make.
I had concluded that I may need a Catalyst to get good (unmovable!) anchors. Trimble Connect (for HoloLens2) looks as though it is moving in the right direction.
The Plane Alignment video shows me that I was making a useful presumption - that the model planes would remain ‘flat’. I think usually that was the case. The video shows the vertical plane extraction and placement. The HoloLens1 could basically do that with SketchUp Viewer for HoloLens (then I would adjust as needed) but it didn’t show the mesh. But here is where I think there needs to be another kind of anchor. Something like the Scan Essentials, Trimble Scan Essentials manipulator TSE Manipulator. But it should be an anchor that I can open and place into the mesh, then open my model to it. If the anchor was also in the model in desktop, I would place it at a human-scale reference point that is of practical use to me. For example, I measure (elevations) off of the lowest corner point of (sliding) door thresholds a lot. The reason I do that is the I often need to know ‘elevations’ relative to entryways. I can base large portions of models off that information and it is the information I want to actually build. Therefore, I would want to place an Anchor there (in the model) and then open the Anchor (in the AR/MR model Viewer) and place the Anchor where I need it to be in the real world. The Anchor ought to have a Rotation Handle in the horizontal plane to align (to sliding door thresholds, which are long enough to align to, to corners of buildings and walls, etc) and then a vertical (just in case the flat plane is off). That’s how I want to place models!
Again, I don’t necessarily need to fit a whole environmental model to the surroundings (at first) I just want to put my construction Anchor in and open the model to it.
The Marker Alignment video shows some useful stuff. I have a video showing a marker I made with Vuforia, trying to overcome some of the model placement issues I was having. I was still left thinking that I needed a Catalyst and an in-model Anchor, like the one I mentioned above.
Then I decided to try an Oculus Rift with a Zed Mini connected to a laptop in a back pack…
At the end of the day I just got so frustrated that I put the whole thing down. Now I’m trying to pick it back up… but HoloLens1 seems like a… maybe a dead-end and I’m not sure I should even try to set the development environment back up (so many changes!)
At any rate, I’m interested in the topic. I do have some opinions about how I would, ideally, use the AR/MR for “Holographic Design & Installation”.
Oh - I did set up a meeting but I had an external speaker highjack my headset. I couldn’t get it back and ended up wasting everybody’s time. I was meaning to set up another call but I’ve been busy during available time slots.