Microsoft will improve HoloLens 2 image quality through upcoming updates
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Microsoft introduced HoloLens 2 last year with several improvements over the 1st gen HoloLens device. HoloLens 2 uses improved waveguides that doubled the field-of-view’s area and produce light projectors with a display that are up to three times brighter. Despite the improvements, several users reported issues related to HoloLens 2 display.
To explain the nature of HoloLens 2 displays, Microsoft has recently published an article. In the article, Microsoft revealed that they are working on software improvements to make the HoloLens 2 image quality better. Microsoft is working on color calibration improvements, new Reading mode and automatic eye position feature. You can read about them in detail below.
- Automatic Eye Position. This feature will enable the eye calibration procedures to take place in the background. Users will no longer need to run eye calibration for active color correction to work. It will instead just work.
- Color Calibration Improvements. This update focuses on color values of darker colors (for example, dark gray). Right now, dimmer colors pick up a red tone. This issue also happens as the entire display is dimmed—the entire display picks up red colors. This issue is a result of too much activity in the red color channel for these darker colors. We’ve characterized the laser illumination curves at these dimmer colors and are working to offer a user calibration procedure. The result will be more color accuracy across the brightness spectrum. It will not change the appearance of white backgrounds at full brightness. We continue to advise use of dark mode design patterns in apps.
- Reading Mode. It is possible for app developers to tradeoff the display field-of-view to achieve higher angular resolution. App developers can override the projection matrix so that content is rendered at the display’s drawing resolution. This feature results in 30% reduction in field-of-view and a corresponding increase in angular resolution. Work is underway to introduce this capability to the Mixed Reality Toolkit. When available, reading mode will work on any HoloLens 2 OS—it is not dependent on an OS update.
You can order Microsoft HoloLens 2 here from Microsoft Store.
