This blog attempts to be a collection of how-to examples in the Microsoft software stack - things that may take forever to find out, especially for the beginner. I see it as my way to return something to the Microsoft community in exchange for what I learned from it.
This special shader that I nicked from this thread on the Unity forms
Setting up the hardware
The Kinect adapter, when you remove it from the box, seems to be quite an intricate contraption of two boxes and three wires, one of them permanently connected to one of the boxes. That box – I’ll call it box #1 - is about the size of a package of cigarettes, and is the power supply. There is a wire with a mains plug that needs to be connected to this box. The other wire – that is permanently attached to box # 1– has a round plug on the other side.That plug goes into box #2 (the one without fixed wire). It’s about the size of an overly thick Mars bar. Now we have one wire unaccounted for – one with a weird squarish plug on one side, and a USB-3 plug on the other side. The squarish part also goes into box #2, next to the round plug coming from the power supply. Now there’s only one hole unaccounted for - on the other side box #1 is another hole – that’s where you need to connect the actual Kinect 2.
Plug in the mains connected to box #1, and connect the USB plug coming from box #2 to your computer’s USB3.0 port. This will start the installation of a couple of drivers, and I seem to recall it also automatically installed the 3D Scan app that you also can find in the store here.
Downloading additional software
If the 3D scan app did not install automatically, you will need to install it from the Windows Store. Also, download and install CloudCompare. Finally download the shader. That’s a zip file – we will need that later in the process. So store that in your downloads folder and unblock it.
The actual scanning
The 3D Scanning app is actually rather straightforward. You can set a few options, and I noticed that you have to fiddle a lot with the settings to get the effect you want. A higher scan resolution give a lower depth, for instance. Also, Kinect sometimes just loses track of the object it tries to track. What you do have to make sure is that there is plenty of light and prevent shadows, because although the actual object tracking is done via Kinect’s magic sensors, the overlaying of color is using the camera and that just needs light. And move slowly. Very slowly.
I scanned myself sitting on a rotating chair and a 120 seconds settings, rotating very very slowly. For this I used the “Kinect Sensor-stationary” setting. When it’s done, it will open the 3D builder app. That usually complains about invalid geometries that need to be fixed. Click the popup, prepare to wait for quite a while, and then finally the 3D object will be ready for the next step
Converting to a format usable for Unity
The annoying thing is that although the 3D builder can save the scanned object as a WaveFront Object (obj) file – that is readable by Unity - it will strip any color from it. So we will need to take an in-between step. To that effect, don’t save the file in OBJ but in PLY format. Then start CloudCompare, and open the PLY file in that you just created. Hit file/save as and save the file now as an FBX file. That gives you a number of options – I usually just use FBX binary.
Importing in Unity and showing the colors
When you import this into Unity and drag the scanned object on the canvas, you will soon notice a few things about me
I’m rather large – like statue-of-Roman-emperor-with-overly-inflated-ego large
I seem to hang at a random place at a random angle in the sky, even if position and rotation are 0,0,0
I am … rather pale.
Getting to let me look less like a roman statue uses requires the special shader. Using my standard folder structure, I added a folder “Shaders” and copied the contents of the UnityVC zip file into it. Net result:
Then in your assets folder, go to the folder where you have imported the scanned model into. In my case that’s App/Models:
In that you will find a Material ColorMaterial
Select that Material, go into it’s properties in the Inspector over on the right and select either “Standard (Vertex Color)” or “Standard Specular (Vertex Color)”
And boom. There I am, in full color color and glorylooking like a zombie.
Now to make me appear in front of the HoloLens view and not seem like some giant ancient, balding and grey god of… whatever descending from Heaven, I used the following settings on the scanned Hologram:
And then you get a more or less life-sized floating ghost/zombie/Borg me-like appearance
I had the dubious pleasure of walking around myself, noticing the back part was missing.
Lessons learned
First of all – already mentioned in passing, make sure there is enough light, and prevent shadows. This is harder than it sounds. You will notice scanned Holograms tend to look rather pale when created with insufficient light.
The handheld setting is way harder to use than the stationary setting. Consider placing objects on a rotary platform rather than moving around it with the Kinect
Move or rotate the object you want to scan slowly (or move the Kinect slowly)
You will have to fiddle a lot with settings before you get the result you want
Larger objects (like humans) are way easier to scan than small objects
Make anything you don’t want on the scan as black as and non-reflective as possible
Concluding remarks
Unity will complain regularly about an error in the shader in the editor, but it still seems to work fine. Having no clue about shaders and how to write them yet, I tend to ignore it. The resulting project, although containing no code written by me at all, can be found here.
This tutorial will show you how to manipulate (move, rotate and scale) Holograms by using gestures. It uses speech commands to change between moving, rotating and scaling. It will build upon my previous blog post, re-using the collision detection. The app we are going to create will work like this (turn on sound to hear the voice commands):
Setting the stage
Once again, we start off with a rather standard setup…
only now we have a cube and a sphere. Neither of their settings are particularly spectacular, and this will show the sphere initially a bit to the left, and a rectangular box a bit to the right
If we actually want this Holograms to do something we need to code some stuff:
A behaviour to select and activate Holograms – TapToSelect
A behaviour that acts on speech commands, so the next behaviour knows what to do – this is SpeechCommandExecuter
A behaviour that responds to tap-hold-and-move gesture and does the actual moving, rotating and scaling – this is SpatialManipulator
Something to wire the whole thing together, a kind of app state manager – AppStateManager and its base class, very originally called BaseAppStateManager.
Selecting a hologram
The fun thing with the new HoloToolkit is that we don’t need do much anymore to listen or track hand movements and speech. It’s all done by the InputManager. We only need to implement the right interfaces to be called with whatever we want to know. So when we want an object to receive a tap, we only need to add a behaviour that implements IInputClickHandler:
public class TapToSelect : MonoBehaviour, IInputClickHandler
{
public virtual void OnInputClicked(InputEventData eventData)
{
if (BaseAppStateManager.IsInitialized)
{
// If not already selected - select, otherwise, deselect
if (BaseAppStateManager.Instance.SelectedGameObject != gameObject)
{
BaseAppStateManager.Instance.SelectedGameObject = gameObject;
}
else
{
BaseAppStateManager.Instance.SelectedGameObject = null;
}
var audioSource = GetAudioSource(gameObject);
if (audioSource != null)
{
audioSource.Play();
}
}
else
{
Debug.Log("No BaseAppStateManager found or initialized");
}
}
}
This basically just gives the object to the App State Manager – or more it’s base class, later more about it, and optionally plays a sound – if the omitted GetAudioSource method can find and AudioSource in either the object or its parent. In the app it does, it plays a by now very recognizable ‘ping’ confirmation sound.
Speech command the new way – listen to me, just hear me out*
Using speech commands has very much changed with the new HoloToolkit. There are actually two ways to go about it:
Using a SpeechInputSource and implementing an ISpeechHandler ‘somewhere’. This is rather straightforward and is very much and analogy of how the IInputClickHandler works. Disadvantage is that you have to define your keywords twice – both in the SpeechInputSource and in the ISpeechHandler implementation
Using a KeywordManager to define your keywords and map them to some object’s method(s).
This sample uses the latter method. It’s a bit of an odd workflow to get it working, but once that’s clear, it’s rather elegant. It’s also more testable, as the interpretation of keywords is separated from the execution. We are implementing that execution in the SpeechCommandExecuter. Its public methods are Move, Rotate, Scale, Done, Faster and Slower which pretty much maps to the available speech commands. And if you look in the code, you will see what it does internally is just call private methods, which in turn try to find the selected objects’ SpatialManipulator and call methods there.
private void TryChangeMode(ManipulationMode mode)
{
var manipulator = GetSpatialManipulator();
if (manipulator == null)
{
return;
}
if (manipulator.Mode != mode)
{
manipulator.Mode = mode;
TryPlaySound();
}
}
private void TryChangeSpeed(bool faster)
{
var manipulator = GetSpatialManipulator();
if (manipulator == null)
{
return;
}
if (manipulator.Mode == ManipulationMode.None)
{
return;
}
if (faster)
{
manipulator.Faster();
}
else
{
manipulator.Slower();
}
TryPlaySound();
}
private SpatialManipulator GetSpatialManipulator()
{
var lastSelectedObject = AppStateManager.Instance.SelectedGameObject;
if (lastSelectedObject == null)
{
Debug.Log("No selected element found");
return null;
}
var manipulator = lastSelectedObject.GetComponent<SpatialManipulator>();
if (manipulator == null)
{
manipulator = lastSelectedObject.GetComponentInChildren<SpatialManipulator>();
}
if (manipulator == null)
{
Debug.Log("No manipulator component found");
}
return manipulator;
}
So why this odd arrangement? That’s because KeywordManager needs an object with parameterless methods to call on keyword recognition. So, we add this SpeechCommandExecuter and a KeywordManager (from the HoloToolkit) to the Managers object, and then we are going to make this work. The easiest way to get going is
Expand “Keywords and Responses”,
Change “size” initially in one.
Type “move object” into keyword,
Click + under “Response”
Drag the “Managers” object in the now visible “None” field. This is best explained by an image:
And then you have to select to what method of which object you want to map this speech command. To do this, click the dropdown menu next to “Runtime Only”, that will initially say “no function”. From the drop down first select the object you want (SpeechCommandExecuter) and then the method you want (Move).
Unfortunately, all objects in the game object are displayed, as are all public methods and properties from every object you select – plus those of its parent classes. You sometimes really have to hunt them down. It’s a bit confusing at first, but once you have done it a couple of time you will get the hang of it. It might feel as an odd way of programming if you are used to the formal declarative approach of things in XAML, but that’s the way it is.
Then change the size to 6 and add all the other keyword/method combinations. By using this method you only have to drag the Managers object once, as the Unity editor will copy all values of the first entry to the new ones.
Spatial Manipulation
This is the behaviour that does most of the work. And it’s surprisingly simple. The most important (new) part is like this:
using UnityEngine;
using HoloToolkit.Unity.InputModule;
namespace LocalJoost.HoloToolkitExtensions
{
public class SpatialManipulator : MonoBehaviour
{
public float MoveSpeed = 0.1f;
public float RotateSpeed = 6f;
public float ScaleSpeed = 0.2f;
public ManipulationMode Mode { get; set; }
public void Manipulate(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
switch (Mode)
{
case ManipulationMode.Move:
Move(manipulationData);
break;
case ManipulationMode.Rotate:
Rotate(manipulationData);
break;
case ManipulationMode.Scale:
Scale(manipulationData);
break;
}
}
void Move(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
var delta = manipulationData * MoveSpeed;
if (CollisonDetector.CheckIfCanMoveBy(delta))
{
transform.localPosition += delta;
}
}
void Rotate(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, Camera.main.transform.up,
-manipulationData.x * RotateSpeed);
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, Camera.main.transform.forward,
manipulationData.y * RotateSpeed);
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, Camera.main.transform.right,
manipulationData.z * RotateSpeed);
}
void Scale(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
transform.localScale *= 1.0f - (manipulationData.z * ScaleSpeed);
}
}
}
The manipulation mode can be either Move, Rotate, Scale – or None, in which case this behaviour does nothing at all. So, when ‘something’ supplies a Vector3 to the Manipulate method, it will either move, rotate or scale the object.
In move mode, when you move your hand, the object will follow the direction. So, if you pull towards you, it will come toward you. Move up, it will move up. Elementary.
Scale is even more simple. Pull toward you, the object will grow, push from you, it will shrink.
Rotate is a bit tricky. Push from you, the object will rotate around the horizontal axis. That is, an axis running through your view from left to right. Effectively, the top of the object will be moving from you and the bottom to you. Move your hand from left to right, or right to left, and the object will rotate around and axis that is running from top to bottom of your view. Last and most tricky – and least intuitive: move your hand from top to bottom and the object will rotate clockwise over the z axis – that is, the axis ‘coming out of your eyes’
There are two more methods – Faster and Slower, which are called via the SpeechManager as you have seen, and their function is not very spectacular: they either multiply the speed value of the currently active manipulation mode by two, or divide it by two. So by saying “go faster” you will make the actual speed at which your Hologram moves, rotates or scales go twice as fast, depending on what you are doing. “Go slower” does the exact opposite.
using UnityEngine;
using HoloToolkit.Unity.InputModule;
namespace LocalJoost.HoloToolkitExtensions
{
public class SpatialManipulator : MonoBehaviour
{
public float MoveSpeed = 0.1f;
public float RotateSpeed = 6f;
public float ScaleSpeed = 0.2f;
public ManipulationMode Mode { get; set; }
public void Manipulate(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
switch (Mode)
{
case ManipulationMode.Move:
Move(manipulationData);
break;
case ManipulationMode.Rotate:
Rotate(manipulationData);
break;
case ManipulationMode.Scale:
Scale(manipulationData);
break;
}
}
void Move(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
var delta = manipulationData * MoveSpeed;
if (CollisonDetector.CheckIfCanMoveBy(delta))
{
transform.localPosition += delta;
}
}
void Rotate(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, Camera.main.transform.up,
-manipulationData.x * RotateSpeed);
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, Camera.main.transform.forward,
manipulationData.y * RotateSpeed);
transform.RotateAround(transform.position, Camera.main.transform.right,
manipulationData.z * RotateSpeed);
}
void Scale(Vector3 manipulationData)
{
transform.localScale *= 1.0f - (manipulationData.z * ScaleSpeed);
}
}
}
The only thing missing now is how it’s all stitched together. That’s actually done using two classes – a BaseStateManager and a descendant, AppStateManager
The BaseStateManager doesn’t do much special. Its main feats are having a property for a selected object and notifying the rest of the world of getting one. And that’s not even used in this sample app but I consider it useful for other purposes, so I left it in. It also calls a virtual method if the selected object is changed.
using System;
using HoloToolkit.Unity;
using UnityEngine;
namespace LocalJoost.HoloToolkitExtensions
{
public class BaseAppStateManager : Singleton<BaseAppStateManager>
{
private GameObject _selectedGameObject;
public GameObject SelectedGameObject
{
get { return _selectedGameObject; }
set
{
if (_selectedGameObject != value)
{
ResetDeselectedObject(_selectedGameObject);
_selectedGameObject = value;
if (SelectedObjectChanged != null)
{
SelectedObjectChanged(this,
new GameObjectEventArgs(_selectedGameObject));
}
}
}
}
protected virtual void ResetDeselectedObject(GameObject oldGameObject)
{
}
public event EventHandler<GameObjectEventArgs> SelectedObjectChanged;
}
}
There is also a class GameObjectEventArgs but that’s too trivial to show here. Note, by the way, I stick to C# 4.0 concepts as this is what Unity currently is limited to.
The actual AppStateManager glues the whole thing together:
public class AppStateManager : BaseAppStateManager, IManipulationHandler
{
void Start()
{
InputManager.Instance.AddGlobalListener(gameObject);
}
public static new AppStateManager Instance
{
get { return (AppStateManager)BaseAppStateManager.Instance; }
}
protected override void ResetDeselectedObject(GameObject oldGameObject)
{
var manipulator = GetManipulator(oldGameObject);
if (manipulator != null)
{
manipulator.Mode = ManipulationMode.None;
}
}
public void OnManipulationUpdated(ManipulationEventData eventData)
{
if (SelectedGameObject != null)
{
var manipulator = GetManipulator(SelectedGameObject);
if (manipulator != null)
{
manipulator.Manipulate(eventData.CumulativeDelta);
}
}
}
protected SpatialManipulator GetManipulator(GameObject obj)
{
if (obj == null)
{
return null;
}
var manipulator = obj.GetComponent<SpatialManipulator>() ??
obj.GetComponentInChildren<SpatialManipulator>();
return manipulator;
}
}
It implements the IManipulationHandler, which means our almighty IManipulationHandler will call it’s OnManipulationUpdated whenever it detects hand with a tap-and-hold gesture (thumb and index finger pressed together) while moving. And it will give that data to the SpatialManipulator in the select object, that is – if the selected object has one. It also makes sure the currently active object gets deactivated once you select a new one. Note, IManipulationHandler requires you to implement three more methods, omitted here, as they are not used in this app.
There is an important line in the Start method, that will define this object as a global input handler. Its OnManipulationUpdated always gets called. Normally, this get only called when it is selected – that is, if your gaze strikes the object. That makes it very hard to move it, as your gaze most likely will most likely fall off the object as you move it. This approach has the advantage you can even manipulate objects even if you are not exactly looking at them.
Wiring it all together in Unity
This is actually really simple now we have all the components. Just go to the Cube in your hierarchy and add these three components:
And don’t forget to drag the InputManager and the Cube itself on the Stabilizer and the Collision Detector fields as I explained in my previous blog post. Repeat for the Sphere object. Build your app, and you should get the result I show in the video.
Concluding remarks
It’s fairly easy to wire together something to move stuff around using gestures. There are a few limitations as to the intuitiveness of the rotation gesture, and you might also notice that while moving the object around uses collision detection, rotating and scaling do not. I leave those as ‘exercise to the reader’ ;). But I do hope this takes you forward as a HoloLens developer.
Full code can be found here
*bonus points if you actually immediately recognized this phrase
Simply put – what I was trying to do create is the effect of what you get in the – in the meantime good old – Holograms app: when you pull a hologram out a menu, it ‘sticks to your gaze’ and follows it. You can air tap and then it stays hanging in the air where you left it, but you can also put it on a floor, on a table, or next to a wall. You can’t push it through a surface. That is, most of the time ;). So, like this:
In the video, you can see it follows the gaze cursor floating through the air till it hits a wall to the left and then stops, then goes down till it hits the bed and then stops, then up again till I finally place it on the floor.
A new year, a new toolkit
As happens often in the bleeding end of technology, things tend to change pretty fast. This is also the case in HoloLens country. I have taken the plunge to Unity 5.5 and the new HoloToolkit which has a few breaking changes. Things have gotten way simpler since the previous iteration. Also, I would like to point out that for this tutorial I am using the latest patch release, which at the time of this writing it 5.5.0p3, released December 22, 2016.
Setting up the initial project
This is best illustrated by a picture. If you have setup the project we basically only need this. Both Managers and HologramCollection are simply empty game objects meant to group stuff together, then don’t have any specific other function here. Drag and drop the four blue prefabs in the indicated places, then set some properties for the cube
The Cube is the thing that will be moved. Now it’s time for ‘some’ code.
The main actors
There are two scripts that play the leading role, with a few supporting roles.
MoveByGaze
IntialPlaceByTap
The first one makes an object move, the second one actually ends it. Apropos, the actual moving is done by our old friend iTween, whose usefulness and application was already described in part 5 of the AMS HoloATC series. So, you will need to include this in the project to prevent all kind of nasty errors. Anyway, let’s get to he star of the show, MoveByGaze.
Moving with gaze
It starts like this:
using UnityEngine;
using HoloToolkit.Unity.InputModule;
using HoloToolkit.Unity.SpatialMapping;
namespace LocalJoost.HoloToolkitExtensions
{
public class MoveByGaze : MonoBehaviour
{
public float MaxDistance = 2f;
public bool IsActive = true;
public float DistanceTrigger = 0.2f;
public BaseRayStabilizer Stabilizer = null;
public BaseSpatialMappingCollisionDetector CollisonDetector;
private float _startTime;
private float _delay = 0.5f;
private bool _isJustEnabled;
private Vector3 _lastMoveToLocation;
private bool _isBusy;
private SpatialMappingManager MappingManager
{
get { return SpatialMappingManager.Instance; }
}
void OnEnable()
{
_isJustEnabled = true;
}
void Start()
{
_startTime = Time.time + _delay;
_isJustEnabled = true;
if (CollisonDetector == null)
{
CollisonDetector =
gameObject.AddComponent<DefaultMappingCollisionDetector>();
}
}
}
}
Up above are the settings:
MaxDistance is the maximum distance from your head the behaviour will try to place the object on a surface. Further than that, and it will just float in the air.
IsActive determines whether the behaviour is active (duh)
DistanceTrigger is the distance your gaze has to be from the object your are moving, before it actual starts to move. It kind of trails your gaze. This prevents the object from moving in a very nervous way.
Stabilizer is the stabilizer made, used and maintained by the InputManager. You will have to drag the InputManager from your scene on this field to use the stabilizer. It’s not mandatory, but highly recommended
CollisionDetector is a class we will see later – it basically makes sure the object that you are dragging is not pushed through any surfaces. You will need to add a collision detector to the game object that you are dragging along – or maybe a game object that is part of the game object that you are dragging. That collision detector needs then to be dragged on this field on the MoveByGaze This is not mandatory. If you don’t add one, the object you attach the MoveByGaze to will just simply follow your gaze, and move right through any object. That’s the work of the DefaultMappingCollisionDetector who is essentially a null pattern implementation.
Anyway, in the Update method all the work is done:
Only if the behaviour is active, not busy, and the first half second is over we are doing anything at all. And the first thing is – telling the world we are busy indeed. Thid method, like all Updates, is called 60 times a second and we want to keep things a bit controlled here. Race conditions are annoying.
Then we get a position in the direction the user is looking, and if that exceeds the distance trigger – or this is the first time we are getting here – we start off finding how far ahead along this gaze we can place the actual object by using CollisionDetector. If that’s is possible – that is, if the CollisionDetector does not find any obstacles, we can actually move the object using iTween. Important is to note that whenever the move is not possible, _isBusy immediately gets set to false. Also, note the fact that the smaller the distance, the faster the move. This is to make sure the final tweaks of setting the object in the right place don’t take a long time. Otherwise, _isBusy is only reset after a successful move.
GetPostionInLookingDirection first tries to get the direction in which you are looking. It tries to use the Stabilizer’s StableRay for that. The Stabilizer is a component of the InputManager that stabilizes your view – and the cursor uses it as well. This prevents the cursor from wobbling too much when you don’t keep your head perfectly still (which most people don’t – this includes me). The stabilizer takes an average movement of 60 samples and that makes for a much less nervous-looking experience. If you don’t have a stabilizer defined, it just takes your actual looking direction – the camera’s position and your looking direction.
Then it tries to see if the resulting ray hits a wall or a floor – but no further than MaxDistance away. If it sees a hit, it returns this point, if it does not, if gives a point in the air MaxDistance away along an invisible ray coming out of your eyes. That’s what CalculatePositionDeadAhead does – but also trying to use the Stabilizer first to find the direction.
Detect collisions
Okay, so what is this famous collision detector that prevents stuff from being pushed through walls and floors, using the spatial perception that makes the HoloLens such a unique device? It’s actually very simple, although it took me a while to actually get it this simple.
using UnityEngine;
namespace LocalJoost.HoloToolkitExtensions
{
public class SpatialMappingCollisionDetector : BaseSpatialMappingCollisionDetector
{
public float MinDistance = 0.0f;
private Rigidbody _rigidbody;
void Start()
{
_rigidbody = GetComponent<Rigidbody>() ?? gameObject.AddComponent<Rigidbody>();
_rigidbody.isKinematic = true;
_rigidbody.useGravity = false;
}
public override bool CheckIfCanMoveBy(Vector3 delta)
{
RaycastHit hitInfo;
// Sweeptest wisdom from
//http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/499013/cubecasting.html
return !_rigidbody.SweepTest(delta, out hitInfo, delta.magnitude);
}
public override Vector3 GetMaxDelta(Vector3 delta)
{
RaycastHit hitInfo;
if(!_rigidbody.SweepTest(delta, out hitInfo, delta.magnitude))
{
return KeepDistance(delta, hitInfo.point); ;
}
delta *= (hitInfo.distance / delta.magnitude);
for (var i = 0; i <= 9; i += 3)
{
var dTest = delta / (i + 1);
if (!_rigidbody.SweepTest(dTest, out hitInfo, dTest.magnitude))
{
return KeepDistance(dTest, hitInfo.point);
}
}
return Vector3.zero;
}
private Vector3 KeepDistance(Vector3 delta, Vector3 hitPoint)
{
var distanceVector = hitPoint - transform.position;
return delta - (distanceVector.normalized * MinDistance);
}
}
}
This behaviour first tries to find a RigidBody, and failing that, adds it. We will need this to check the presence of anything ‘in the way’. But – this is important – we will set ‘isKinematic’ to true and ‘useGravity’ to false, or else or object will come under control of the Unity physics engine and drop on the floor. In this case, we want to control the movement of the object.
So, this class has two public methods (it’s abstract base class demands that). One, CheckIfCanMoveBy (that we don’t use now), just says if you can move your object in the intended direction over the intended distance without hitting anything. The other essentially does the same, but if it finds something in the way, it also tries to find a distance over which you can move in the desired direction. For this, we use the SweepTest method of RigidBody. Essentially you give it a vector, a distance along that vector, and it has an out variable that gives you info about a hit, should any occur. If a hit does occur, it tries at again at 1/4th, 1/7th and 1/10th of that initially found distance. Failing everything, it returns a zero vector. By using this rough approach, and object moves quickly in a few steps till it can no more.
And then it also moves the object back over a distance you can set from the editor. This keeps the object just a little above the floor or from the wall, show that be desired. That’s what KeepDistance is for.
The whole point of having a base class BaseSpatialMappingCollisionDetector, by the way, is a) enabling null pattern implementation which as implemented by DefaultMappingCollisionDetector and b) make different collision detectors based upon different needs. A bit of architectural considerations within the sometimes-bewildering universe of Unity development.
Making it stop – InitialPlaceByTap
Making the MoveByGaze stop is very simple – set the IsActive field to false. Now we only need something to actually make that happen. With the new HoloToolkit, this is actually very very simple:
using UnityEngine;
using HoloToolkit.Unity.InputModule;
namespace LocalJoost.HoloToolkitExtensions
{
public class InitialPlaceByTap : MonoBehaviour, IInputClickHandler
{
protected AudioSource Sound;
protected MoveByGaze GazeMover;
void Start()
{
Sound = GetComponent<AudioSource>();
GazeMover = GetComponent<MoveByGaze>();
InputManager.Instance.PushFallbackInputHandler(gameObject);
}
public void OnInputClicked(InputEventData eventData)
{
if (!GazeMover.IsActive)
{
return;
}
if (Sound != null)
{
Sound.Play();
}
GazeMover.IsActive = false;
}
}
}
By implementing IInputClickHandler the InputManager will send an event to this object when you air tap and it is selected by gaze. But by pushing it as fallback handler it will get this event also when it’s not selected. The event processing is pretty simple – if the GazeMover in this object is active, it’s de-activated. Also, if there’s an AudioSource detected, it’s sound is played. I very much recommend this kind of audio feedback.
Wiring it all together
On your cube, you drag the MoveByGaze, SpatialMappingCollisionDetector, and InitialPlaceByTap scripts. Then you drag the cube itself again on the CollisionDetector field of MoveByGaze, and the InputManager on the Stabilizer field. Unity itself will select the right component.
So, in this case I could also have used GetComponent<SpatialMappingCollisionDetector> in stead of a field where you need to drag something on. But this way is more flexible – in app I did not want to use the whole object’s collider, but only that of a child object. Note I have set the MinDistance for the SpatialMappingCollisionDetector for 1 cm – it will keep an extra centimeter distance from the wall or the floor.
Concluding remarks
So this is how you can more or less replicate part of the behavior of the Holograms App, by moving around objects with your gaze and placing them on surfaces using air tap. The unique capabilities of the HoloLens allow us to place objects next to or on top of physical objects, and the new HoloToolkit makes using those capabilities pretty easy.
Importing in Unity and showing the colors
![clip_image001[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMZrAItinxOpU3Wo-AzfNOfwQQVrzKl-SuIEcluDhdzzVuesDr5fN37_bS4JLtg0pTq-1z6V8yANTjclYLbyo_0JBlsHRiG_oz2Kf65EJoK1m1BOyzFDEeN6lMfldm1Hu-jnDgQulHipkr/s1600-h/clip_image001%25255B4%25255D%25255B2%25255D.png "clip_image001[4]")
![clip_image002[9]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_I97lhJXnFOzE0tD7ny-_NGajA2TqEgYVxvt1x9I7RAWZp-LCa7EVFPflMQmv0Je2BxP4loKvas0IFL8LJvA735j3fT8ARS0kWGF24l99uAaVxkztAH1JA03DwNgKmm3TInmuKk7ECJxv/s1600-h/clip_image002%25255B9%25255D%25255B16%25255D.png "clip_image002[9]")
![clip_image003[4]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BwkC2nd-RicQ9ERHN1WwMcPVlcHWDzBRcRQnbd4H7LnHhFUGsLjG_BrwL6_V6xAsyUIwU7E_rTNG-6VCc6vmMfCWJdKmY215uHuD6nygEyW7PlgCK4llgKc18qLAKoLDUDjFSI-IRp0x/s1600-h/clip_image003%25255B4%25255D%25255B10%25255D.png "clip_image003[4]")
![clip_image002[11]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUfQmvGNT49dr3P3CTvcf7DHgpnRMTfZQlv_Ef3KvplohEBM-cUYWY4VVJdNgzeJMrvZzyWcUNUt9kgXdJ6sRL8EzXaffqyvCGh3_HOqJvZB6N4lTari3-IMP2Lr11bAKEBEPJWC12ldW8/s1600-h/clip_image002%25255B11%25255D%25255B4%25255D.png "clip_image002[11]")
