With the high production costs and the technical difficulties, hologram technology is still far away from being the next big storytelling element. Companies, such as Microsoft and 8i, have realized this and recently have been working to popularize volumetric capture.

New Zealand- and Los Angeles-based capture startup 8i is a prominent player working on this technology for years. The company describes its mission as “enabling people to experience human content and each other in the most realistic way through holograms.”

The company addresses the lack of real human content in immersive computing nowadays, and they claim they are solving that problem by providing the easiest way to create, distribute and experience human holograms, which look and feel real, as if they are in the same room.

The 8i technology mainly transforms video captured through an array of cameras into a 3D hologram of a human that has true volume, and can be viewed from any angle, on any device in augmented, virtual or mixed reality. The company provides developers and creators specific tools to integrate these holograms and enable a broad range of immersive experiences and apps with real people.

Microsoft Mixed Reality for democratizing hologram technology

Microsoft has a similar approach: being committed to keep volumetric capture easily replicable. Microsoft does this by using off-the-shelf cameras and other easily accessible components.

One of the first outcome of Microsoft’s effort in this field is Factory 42’s “Hold the World” project for the British broadcaster Sky. In the project, viewers are able to go behind the scenes of London’s Natural History Museum and virtually explore the Museum’s well protected artifacts.

“It’s not the same as normal VR,” said Factory 42 co-founder and CEO, John Cassy, to Variety:”It’s a big step closer to reality.”

But the question still stands: Is the hologram technology going to be really accessible for everyone? Namely will we, as regular people, have a chance to turn ourselves into holograms? Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Capture team is already thinking about democratizing the technology, according to Variety.

Despite this ambitious goal, it is hard to expect a consumer-grade version of the technology any time soon, considering equipment costs, and very complex settings. However, the technology could easily find a fast developing path towards consumer-level accessibility, through these promising investments from both Microsoft and 8i.