At UnitedXR Brussels 2025, Volum demonstrated something that most people have only imagined: two on-site participants in Brussels interacting with a life-size holographic presence of a remote colleague in Barcelona — all in real time, all anchored within the same physical space.
What we demonstrated
The experience ran in passthrough mixed reality mode, meaning the participants in Brussels could see both the physical world around them and the holographic colleague from Barcelona — simultaneously and without switching between modes. Spatial awareness was maintained for everyone in the loop.
The remote participant in Barcelona was captured using a multi-camera RGBD rig and streamed in real time via the HoloMIT pipeline. The result was a sub-300ms end-to-end experience — fast enough that eye contact, conversation and natural interaction felt immediate and fluid.
Why passthrough matters
Most holographic and XR demonstrations force users into a fully virtual environment, losing all sense of where they actually are. Passthrough changes that equation entirely.
- Faster onboarding — people instantly understand what they are seeing because the real world remains visible and familiar
- Improved safety — participants can move freely without losing environmental awareness, making the experience practical in public spaces
- Natural collaboration — users can reference physical objects in the room, point to things, and interact in ways that pure VR cannot support
- Better accessibility — first-time users adapt within seconds rather than minutes, dramatically lowering the barrier to meaningful holographic interaction
The broader picture
The UnitedXR event brought together XR researchers, practitioners and policymakers from across Europe. Volum's demonstration drew significant interest from attendees working in virtual tourism, cultural heritage, remote assistance, education and live events — any domain where physical presence matters but distance is a constraint.
The same technology that powered the Brussels demonstration is now available through the HoloMIT SDK for Unity developers, and is built into every Volum hardware unit. What was a research prototype three years ago is now a deployable product stack.
We are grateful to the UnitedXR team for the opportunity to show this to such an engaged and informed audience. More deployments — and more stories — to come.