Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Tool Kit (MRTK) has recently been updated to version two, as announced by Dong Yoon Park, Principal UX Designer at Microsoft for HoloLens, and Sophie Stellmach , Senior Scientists at HoloLens, on LinkedIn. The program is “a Microsoft driven project that provides a set of components and features to accelerate cross-platform MR app development in Unity,” according to their website. The software is supported by Hololens’ 1 and 2, Windows Mixed Reality immersive headset, and OpenVR headsets, and is available now on GitHub. MRTK requires either Windows SDK 18362+, Unity 2018.4.x, or Visual Studio 2019.
The program uses a Bounding Box around each object (the wire frame seen in the video above) to act as the user’s interface with objects. Users can make a pinching motion with their hands at the corners of the box to change the objects size, location, or orientation. These Bounding Boxes can also be setup to give visual information to the user: pointing at the box can make it change colors or light up, indicating which object the user is interacting with. The same can be done with audio, allowing creators to add in any sounds they like when users interact with the boxes.
The eye motion tracking is by far the most impressive portion of the software. Having the ability to track a users’ eye movements means programers do everything from create a menu that can follow the user’s view, or labels on objects that always face the user, ensuring that they are always readable.
This is great news for Spatial, an augmented reality (AR) virtual workspace that we reported on last year, as well as more recently when Microsoft began working with them to create spatial, virtual assistants.
