I tried Meta’s Horizon Hyperscape demo: Welcome to the metaverse’s first holodeck [Video]

Last week at Meta Connect 2024, Mark Zuckerberg announced Hyperscape, a new tool for exploring real-world spaces in VR. You can download the software in beta form from the Meta Horizon store, so naturally, I took it for a spin.

Photogrammetry is nothing new. In fact, the term, then dubbed “photometrographie” in German, was described in an architectural publication as far back as 1867. The term (which comprises the morphemes photo, gram, and metry) describes light, recording, and measurement. Essentially, photogrammetry is measuring and recording from photographs.

Also: Meta takes some big AI swings at Meta Connect 2024

Hyperscape takes photogrammetry into the virtual world in a rather impressive, if somewhat limited way. Zuckerberg described the tool as a way of using a smartphone to scan a space and then turn it into something you could move around in within the metaverse, sort of like a rudimentary holodeck.

Although the smartphone scanning capability was not …