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General Questions About MS Guides

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Posted on by MHI-MJM

Hello there!

I'm new to MS Guides and have questions.

1. Do MS Guides work for tablets or just HoloLens devices? If compatible, are MS Guides compatible with IOS devices? If not, will this change in the future?

2. How does authoring a guide work in MS Guides? Let say I have my 3D CAD model I want to use.

3. Can 3D CAD models be imported into a guide for detailed instruction? Is there a file conversion or optimization step required in between? If so, what file formats are accepted in MS Guides?

4. How are 3D CAD models manipulated during the authoring process? It appears that manipulation can only be done with use of a HoloLens.

5. Do MS Guides require a special target/anchor to run or can it run without a target/anchor? How is this done?

6. How are elements such as arrows, highlighting objects, images and videos accurately positioned in the augmented reality environment during the authoring process? It appears that this is done by hand with the Hololens on the authors head. Is there a way to define a coordinate system and use 3D coordinates to specify holo object location?

7. How are 3D models accurately scaled to real world objects?

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Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: General Questions About MS Guides

@MHI-MJM

In regards to your follow up questions (and FYI I don't work for Microsoft) but I build and use Guides regularly for my work:

If you build and use a guide, to be honest, a device other than a AR glasses doesn't make sense. D365 Guides is really about work flows in say a factory environment (1) example. Tablets running Guides doesn't make sense in my companies factories for a several legit reasons.

Can you take apart a 3d model in Guides: No. I describe guides as floating power point instructions with annotations that use holograms to executives who have never used Guides. Many of them downplay the importance of such instructions and the importance of hands free interaction. They only do this once: 1st time they wear an HL2 and run through a Guide their stance changes. But it is not a 3d model pull part program. I could probably force Guides to do that "sort of" but that is not what it is for.

GLB and gITF are the formats supported. But to get to GLB or gITF you are often converting from some "other" 3D format. Not all 3D formats can be converted correctly. Thus the documentation lists the other (FBX, STL etc) formats that can be properly converted to GLB and gITF.

At this time, I am not aware of customer 3d animations being supported. Guides has several holograms with built in animation out of the box. But the ability to create your own hologram GIF like sequence with your own hologram is not yet supported.

The anchors are really good. We have moved holograms around a large factory floor. However, Guides out of the box giving you a precise "point cloud" location is not available. Could you build a program to extract that info, maybe.

I hope this helps
Ken
NKC 4,440 on at

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RE: General Questions About MS Guides

Hi Mahesh,

I started working with Guides for few days and have some similar questions as posted above.

It would be so great if you could pass me the link to the recording of the webinar you mentioned.

I would be very grateful for this!
MaheshKamat on at

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RE: General Questions About MS Guides

Hi there, sorry for the delay in responding. Would you be able to attend our webinar tomorrow at 9am Pacific time? We are discussing this topic specifically and will be able to answer several of your questions.

You can join the broadcast here: https://aka.ms/guideswebinar

Please let me know if you cannot attend, and I will find a way to pass you a link to the recording.
MHI-MJM 5 on at

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RE: General Questions About MS Guides

Hello!

Thank you for responding to my questions quickly. I appreciate the information you provided, however I am still needing clarity.

Please refer to my reply in bold.

1. Do MS Guides work for tablets or just HoloLens devices? If compatible, are MS Guides compatible with IOS devices? If not, will this change in the future?

At this time, Guides is available for HoloLens 1 and 2. Also, for creating guides, you will need to install the PC application on a Windows 10 PC. For the future, we are exploring bringing mixed reality instructions to various devices based on their strengths.

Any idea when other devices would support mixed reality instructions made in MS Guides? This year? A few years from now?

2. How does authoring a guide work in MS Guides? Let say I have my 3D CAD model I want to use.

Please refer to our documentation at the following site to see how authoring works: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/guides/authoring-overview

We also have a Youtube playlist that you can follow while creating guides: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/guides/videos

I looked through the video playlist and did not find the information I was looking for. Most of the examples show annotated instructions and minimal use of CAD models. I want to know if animations can be made via MS Guides. Can I take apart a 3D model in MS Guides?

3. Can 3D CAD models be imported into a guide for detailed instruction? Is there a file conversion or optimization step required in between? If so, what file formats are accepted in MS Guides?

Yes and yes. Optimization is key to making sure your 3D models perform well on HoloLens. Our partner team (D365 Import tool) has written some great documentation for creating, optimizing and importing 3D models for mixed reality. See here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/import-tool/

Guides supports FBX, GLB, glTF, STL and PLY formats.

I am confused. The link you provided seems to indicate that a separate third party tool is required to convert CAD files to FBX, STL, PLY, GLB, and gITF files types. Then in addition I would need the Microsoft Import Tool to convert the 3D model to GLB locally so that it may be used in MS Guides. Is this correct?

4. How are 3D CAD models manipulated during the authoring process? It appears that manipulation can only be done with use of a HoloLens.

In-context authoring is a core design principle for Guides. We leverage one of the best things about HoloLens 2, using hand-tracking to help content creators make mixed reality instructions in the contexts in which they're operators work in, and try it the same way that their operators will experience the instructions.

That said, you can design your 3D models, textures and animations using a wide variety of tools before importing into Guides. I'd refer you to the Import tool documentation mentioned above for an overview of creation methods.

Is there something specific you're looking for with authoring?

Yes. It is unclear to me how 3D model animations are conducted. Do I create the animation in a different software, say Unity, and then import it into MS Guides? Or do I create the animation in MS Guides?

5. Do MS Guides require a special target/anchor to run or can it run without a target/anchor? How is this done?

You can anchor guides using printed codes (QR code or circular codes), or without an anchor. There's also an option to not use an anchor i.e. use a hologram as digital anchor. This is useful in cases where your guide does not need to relate to a fixed workspace. Here's our docs pages on anchoring methods in Guides: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/guides/anchor

Noted. Thank you for the information.

6. How are elements such as arrows, highlighting objects, images and videos accurately positioned in the augmented reality environment during the authoring process? It appears that this is done by hand with the Hololens on the authors head. Is there a way to define a coordinate system and use 3D coordinates to specify holo object location?

All of the holograms are placed in relation to printed anchors (or holographic anchor if that's what you choose). The printed anchor is the "origin point" of the coordinate system. We also leverage the spatial maps created by the HoloLens to maintain accuracy of hologram positioning.

I understand that the anchor becomes the origin. Is it possible to specify the exact coordinates of an object so that for all intents and purpose it stays located exactly where I want it in reality? I would be concerned about placing holo objects precisely using the hand-tracking feature in the HoloLens. I guess trying out the HoloLens itself will help settle my concerns.

7. How are 3D models accurately scaled to real world objects?

Are you asking about maintaining the size/scale of 3D CAD models once brought into Guides?

Yes, how do I preserve the already scaled CAD models when importing into Guides?
Suggested answer

MaheshKamat on at

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RE: General Questions About MS Guides

Hi there and thanks for trying D365 Guides! Answering your questions below. Feel free to ask further - we'd love to learn how you plan to use Guides.

1. Do MS Guides work for tablets or just HoloLens devices? If compatible, are MS Guides compatible with IOS devices? If not, will this change in the future?

At this time, Guides is available for HoloLens 1 and 2. Also, for creating guides, you will need to install the PC application on a Windows 10 PC. For the future, we are exploring bringing mixed reality instructions to various devices based on their strengths.

2. How does authoring a guide work in MS Guides? Let say I have my 3D CAD model I want to use.

Please refer to our documentation at the following site to see how authoring works: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/guides/authoring-overview

We also have a Youtube playlist that you can follow while creating guides: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/guides/videos

3. Can 3D CAD models be imported into a guide for detailed instruction? Is there a file conversion or optimization step required in between? If so, what file formats are accepted in MS Guides?

Yes and yes. Optimization is key to making sure your 3D models perform well on HoloLens. Our partner team (D365 Import tool) has written some great documentation for creating, optimizing and importing 3D models for mixed reality. See here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/import-tool/

Guides supports FBX, GLB, glTF, STL and PLY formats.

4. How are 3D CAD models manipulated during the authoring process? It appears that manipulation can only be done with use of a HoloLens.

In-context authoring is a core design principle for Guides. We leverage one of the best things about HoloLens 2, using hand-tracking to help content creators make mixed reality instructions in the contexts in which they're operators work in, and try it the same way that their operators will experience the instructions.

That said, you can design your 3D models, textures and animations using a wide variety of tools before importing into Guides. I'd refer you to the Import tool documentation mentioned above for an overview of creation methods.

Is there something specific you're looking for with authoring?

5. Do MS Guides require a special target/anchor to run or can it run without a target/anchor? How is this done?

You can anchor guides using printed codes (QR code or circular codes), or without an anchor. There's also an option to not use an anchor i.e. use a hologram as digital anchor. This is useful in cases where your guide does not need to relate to a fixed workspace. Here's our docs pages on anchoring methods in Guides: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/mixed-reality/guides/anchor

6. How are elements such as arrows, highlighting objects, images and videos accurately positioned in the augmented reality environment during the authoring process? It appears that this is done by hand with the Hololens on the authors head. Is there a way to define a coordinate system and use 3D coordinates to specify holo object location?

All of the holograms are placed in relation to printed anchors (or holographic anchor if that's what you choose). The printed anchor is the "origin point" of the coordinate system. We also leverage the spatial maps created by the HoloLens to maintain accuracy of hologram positioning.

7. How are 3D models accurately scaled to real world objects?

Are you asking about maintaining the size/scale of 3D CAD models once brought into Guides?