HoloLens 2 Research Mode as a Tool for Computer Vision Research
This provides a platform for researchers in computer vision and robotics to conduct experiments using HoloLens 2, though it is incremental as it builds on existing hardware capabilities.
The authors introduced HoloLens 2 Research Mode, an API and tools for accessing raw sensor streams on the mixed reality headset, enabling development of computer vision applications and integration with built-in tracking features.
Mixed reality headsets, such as the Microsoft HoloLens 2, are powerful sensing devices with integrated compute capabilities, which makes it an ideal platform for computer vision research. In this technical report, we present HoloLens 2 Research Mode, an API and a set of tools enabling access to the raw sensor streams. We provide an overview of the API and explain how it can be used to build mixed reality applications based on processing sensor data. We also show how to combine the Research Mode sensor data with the built-in eye and hand tracking capabilities provided by HoloLens 2. By releasing the Research Mode API and a set of open-source tools, we aim to foster further research in the fields of computer vision as well as robotics and encourage contributions from the research community.