Setting up AR

[azreark1]

So I've looked over the information on your website on getting the AR portion of the VR system setup and it's somewhat limited. I've enabled the camera in SteamVR for my Vive Pro, I've gotten into P3D and have tried numerous different setting but for the life of me I just can't seem to get any portals created. The system never sees the wands (even though they're tracking in SteamVR) so none of the buttons work in trying to create portals, and when I try to manually create the portals through the VR UI, I never see anything. Can you shed some light on this process?

[Kayla Dillon]

Hello,

Have you tried selecting "Portals" from the Passthrough Mode dropdown in the Augmented Reality settings?

Do you have your Vive Stereo camera enabled through SteamVR?

Regards,
Kayla

[azreark1]

Yes, I've enabled the camera in the SteamVR settings, and selected Portals in the passthrough dropdown menu in the AR settings menu.

[Kayla Dillon]

Hello,

Are you running the latest version of SteamVR?

Regards,
Kayla

[azreark1]

So uninstalling previous v4.5 iteration (.11 I think?) and installing latest .12 version solved the problem.

New question...is it possible to utilize a fixed external camera for the portal view as opposed to using the built-in Vive Pro camera system?

[azreark1]

Okay so new problem in getting AR to work. So first off, when creating my own portal through the Portals menu, what exactly is supposed to happen in the sim when that portal is selected? Because I've changed sizes, offset coordinates, colors, etc., and I never see anything in the sim. When using Passthrough Camera to create a portal using the wands, I can create a portal but it slowly moves towards the back of the cockpit, never stays where I place it with the wands, is this normal? Also, after selecting Passthrough Camera and creating a portal, even if I delete the portal I created, when I go back into setting and click on the portal tab, it is completely blank.

[azreark1]

Any ideas LM?!

[azreark1]

To kind of narrow it down, more importantly, when Portals are selected, where is Point-ZERO for the X, Y, and Z offset starting points?

[MNWinchester]

Hello,
I'll do my best to answer your questions regarding AR!

Regarding creating portals through the menu, it all depends on the selected Portal Origin.
Your follow up question related to this so I will touch on that too, but the 'Point-ZERO for the X, Y, and Z offset starting points' as you put it, are as follows:
Aircraft Relative: Portals will be offset from the center of the Aircraft (so 0,0,0 will be the center of the model)
Camera Relative: Portals will be offset from the HMD origin (so 0,0,0 will be near your head, offset from the HMD's anchor point)
Eye Relative: Portals will be visible in front of your eyes (0,0,0 will be constantly updated to wherever your eyes are based on the movements of your VR headset)
World Relative: Portals will stay in a fixed point in space, wherever you create them, they will stay regardless of aircraft or head movement.

So if you create an aircraft relative portal through the menu, you will need to offset it forward enough so it comes forward to the cockpit of the aircraft. (Since 0,0,0 will typically be behind you.)
You can actually see this if you create a large aircraft relative portal at 0,0,0 and switch to a top-down view. The portal will be in the center of the aircraft.

As for portals moving backwards and not holding still, that has been fixed and can be solved by updating your Prepar3D to the latest hotfix.

Let me know if you have any other questions!
Matt