From day one, my favorite on the Magic Leap One was its portability. It is so well designed that it only shouts for a walk around the city. Unfortunately, Magic Leap says the device is (currently) designed for indoor use, preferably in environments with few windows or black surfaces.
I understand this policy because of some of the difficulties I had in scanning indoors. But I could not ignore the extreme mobile friendliness of the device, so I decided to take the chance and see what the Magic Leap One can do outdoors.
But I had to be strategic. I just could not go into the middle of the day and use it on every corner and expect good results. Without walls (or wall-like structures) and with too much light, I could not even begin (I've already tried that, and the sensors of the device could not pick up anything). So I was looking for a piece of New York City that's technically out there, but with the characteristics of a room.
It took a bit of searching, but I finally decided on a nice little corner in Central Park ̵
In addition to the location, I was also strategically about the time of day. I did not want too much sunlight so I left the day with just a few hours of sunlight. The garden was pretty crowded at the time, but after my recent public experience with the unit, I was convinced that I was not aware of questions from passersby (New Yorkers apparently have seen everything) and mine
Opening the menu to open the Create App was easy The hardest part was that the Magic Leap One found something to scan. My initial assumption was that the device would try to use my previously saved WorldMesh scan data from the last room I was in, but instead I started scanning the outside space. We are in business!
At first it did not record anything, but as soon as I managed to scan a small part of the ground, I was on my way to the races, and the unit began to show some of the characteristics of the canopy area, including the stone benches, leaf-lined columns with irregular shapes and the approach of a blanket (though with many holes translucent sunlight).
Once this was done, I populated the outdoor space with Creates animated characters, objects, gadgets, and tree life. All this happened as the visitors continued to walk past and through my virtual objects, none of which was disturbed in any way as I continued to add to the scene. Of course WorldMesh scans were not perfect due to the lack of solid walls and the brightness of the outside environment, but it was good enough.
It's a bit odd to experience the spatial audio emanating from the creatures in Create while simultaneously processing the very real nature sounds in the garden around you.
Perhaps the biggest difference between using the Magic Leap One outside versus the inside is that when you're outside, the virtual objects are more transparent (some of the occlusion aspects of virtual objects have been flickered and, as I mentioned earlier, object tracking was in The real world is not always accurate because of the imperfect environment that the device's sensors used to build WorldMesh.
Magic Leap's official documentation states that "outdoor environments or environments with significant or continuous changes should be avoided because they can lead to holes or incorrect geometry in the environment. Last model. "Nevertheless, the Magic Leap One's sensors were still up to the task.
After rolling a few virtual balls on the ground and even making a whirlwind to the ground Ground of Central Park, I was satisfied that I used the Magic Leap One outside, under very specific conditions is not only possible, it can be fun. Now is the time to push this AR system further to see what else it can do.
