Rice bioscientists use mixed-reality headset, custom software to measure vegetation in the field

A Rice University lab that specializes in applying data science to the study of conservation biology has created an open-source app to harvest field data from Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed-reality headset. Daniel Gorczynski, a graduate student in the lab of Rice data scientist and conservation biologist Lydia Beaudrot, created the software package called VegSense. It works with the Microsoft headset to gather field data about understory vegetation in specific locations. The app allows researchers to gather data as they walk and look at vegetation. Spatial data is displayed on the HoloLens screen in real time and can be stored for later analysis.

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