{"id":1157282,"date":"2025-12-17T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-story&p=1157282"},"modified":"2025-12-17T13:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:17:13","slug":"3d-telecommunications-goes-open-source","status":"publish","type":"msr-story","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/story\/3d-telecommunications-goes-open-source\/","title":{"rendered":"3D Telecommunications\u00a0goes\u00a0open\u00a0source"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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3D Telecommunications goes open source<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Bringing\u00a0Holoportation\u2122 from the lab to the field<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A decade ago, researchers from Microsoft unveiled Holoportation\u2122<\/a>, a provocative new technology that could virtually teleport (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> a person from one place to another in three dimensions and in real-time. Using multiple cameras and a HoloLens<\/a>-augmented reality headset, people could visit with loved ones from a great distance and enjoy a replay of that visit much like they might watch a video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years to come, the 3D capture technology was upgraded, enabling high-quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed, compressed, and transmitted anywhere in the world. Microsoft Research provided the 3D Telecommunications (3DTC) technology that enabled doctors from NHS Scotland to consult with clinicians and patients at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> in Ghana, allowing them to collaborate on life-changing surgical procedures in real-time over a live Teams call. This groundbreaking system allowed doctors to see these patients as if they were in the same room, even though they were thousands of miles away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Having demonstrated its real-world capabilities, 3DTC is now ready to move beyond the lab. To facilitate future development by external researchers and organizations, Microsoft is releasing the technology under an open source (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> license, allowing anyone to freely use and modify it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An image from the 3D Telecommunications software of a patient in the 3D system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThis is a rare opportunity for us to take a technology that we\u2019ve developed and bring it to the public to use. We\u2019re really hopeful that open sourcing it will enable external groups to pick it up and run with it,\u201d said Spencer Fowers<\/a>, a principal researcher who works on the Special Projects team at Microsoft Research. That\u2019s the team that launched and nurtured HoloportationTM<\/sup> from a research project through multiple 3DTC deployments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fowers and the Special Projects<\/a> team are tasked with pushing the boundaries of new technologies and proving their value outside of a research environment. This includes work like Project Natick<\/a>, which showed that datacenters can run efficiently under the ocean using renewable energy. Once the pure research phase of a project ends, the team can move on to incubating additional frontier technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe 3D Telemedicine project was extremely gratifying to work on. Now, we\u2019ve pushed that technology about as far as we can go. We\u2019ve streamlined it down to the best technologies available and the best price point to allow people to keep moving forward with it. We\u2019re ready to hand it off.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Improving the system and driving deployments<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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HoloportationTM<\/sup> has changed considerably since its first research paper: Holoportation: Virtual 3D Teleportation in Real-Time<\/a>, which introduced it as an \u201cend-to-end system for augmented and virtual reality telepresence.\u201d Like many new systems, the underlying code was unrefined and a bit buggy, according to Fowers. In addition to continuously cleaning and simplifying the code, the researchers have drastically reduced the system\u2019s operating costs. The initial setup used expensive research grade cameras that required multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) to process and transmit imagery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the cost of the latest 3DTC system in use in Ghana has been reduced by about 90%. This system is also mobile (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>\u2014it fits in the back of a van and can travel to remote locations, making it easier for patients to get treatment. It uses just two standard computers and off-the-shelf imaging components. The researchers also reduced the bandwidth requirements by 97% without compromising quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A combined team of technicians from ECL Global and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana prepares the mobile 3D Telecommunication installation for use in Koforidua, Ghana.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe initial system required up to three gigabytes of bandwidth. They had to run fiberoptics from one location to the other just to run the demo. Today, it runs on Wi-Fi. We ran it literally in a van using 4G cellular networks from Ghana all the way to Brazil, Rwanda, and Glasgow, Scotland, all at the same time,\u201d Fowers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Watch a short demonstration of the team’s research efforts to make Holoportation truly mobile.<\/h3>\n<\/div>