In recent weeks, Unity has made a few great leaps forward for HoloLens development. These new features will increase iteration speed inside Unity and quickly increase the output of applications in the mixed reality space. Of these new features, let's take some time to talk about Holographic Emulation and why this will do so much for the development community.

Up to this point, the development process with HoloLens would be to make a series of changes, then build, compile, and deploy. After all of that, you could test it on the HoloLens and determine if your changes worked or not. This process can easily take up to 5 minutes from hitting the build button to launching your application. To fix this problem, Unity has introduced Holographic Emulation.

This new tool allows the developer to make changes to their application, and instead of going through that time-consuming compilation process, the user can make a few choices in the Holographic Emulation window and test their application inside of Unity simply by hitting the play button. Using a game controller such as a wireless Xbox one, the user can then move the viewport around like the camera is their viewpoint, and use the triggers as air-tap simulations.