A Toolkit for Building Collaborative Immersive Multi-Surface Applications

The paper describes a toolkit that integrates spatially-aware multi-surface systems with mixed-reality approaches to create immersive collaborative environments. The toolkit integrates multiple digital displays and multiple Microsoft HoloLens devices with multiple Kinects. The HoloLens' allow several users to look at the same virtual hologram while the Kinects enable them to use body movements to interact with these holograms as well as with other digital surfaces in a space. Effectively, the toolkit enables its users to build collaborative applications that utilize digital displays as well as the space between them to interact with information. Our approach also facilitates the management of virtual objects and overcomes gesture restrictions of HoloLens. We use the toolkit in a prototype application for improving the efficiency and response time in emergency management.