Aligning the Virtual Scene

You can align the virtual scene with a physical seat to experience the design from a seating position. This is especially useful for interior vehicle reviews.

In the context of a head-mounted display (HMD) scenario, such an alignment becomes even more important as the user wearing the device cannot see the physical seat otherwise.

Before you begin: In the HMD access settings (small button below the touchpad), select Power Management, and then define Turn off controllers to Never. This ensures that the seat buck tracker stays active. To save battery, close the SteamVR window whenever you are not using the HMD.
  1. Open a model.
  2. Make sure that the robot location and physical tracker positions are identical relative to the seat.

  3. From the AR-VR section of the action bar, click HMD .
  4. From the AR-VR section of the action bar, click Viewpoints .
  5. In the Viewpoints dialog box, click .

    Important: If you do no activate HMD, the icon is grayed.

    A new set of configuration is added and is named Seat Buck Alignment n (n is incremented for each new set you create). When you select a set in the list, this updates the values in the Seat buck alignment area on the right of the dialog box.
  6. In the Virtual Reference area, specify the reference either through an object, or through the Robot.
    OptionDescription
    No Selection Lets you specify the reference through the tree or an object in the scene. To do so, click No Selection first. Then select a product, a part, or a shape in the 3D area, or in the tree.

    You can then tune the reference by moving the Robot, or by manually entering the offset values in the Offset area below. Moving the Robot automatically fills the offset values relative to the selected object and inversely, manually changing the offset values moves the Robot accordingly.
    Lock Current Orientation Lets you specify the reference through the Robot. To do so, proceed in the following order: right-click the Robot, select Lock Current Orientation, position the Robot manually at tracker position relative to seat, and then click from Robot.

    The No selection box displays from Robot and the absolute coordinates of the current Robot's position are specified as offset values. Moving the Robot updates the offset values and inversely, manually changing the offset values also moves the Robot accordingly.
  7. In the Offset area, define the virtual reference translation and rotation offsets.

    The translation offset corresponds to the offset of the physical seat buck‘s seating reference to the attached tracker‘s origin. Position the robot according to the seating reference's coordinates. To do so, right-click the Robot, select Edit..., and then use the Position options.

  8. In the Physical Reference area, define the following options:
    OptionDescription
    Tracker Lists all available trackers.

    The default value is Tracking origin and is relevant for configurations with no specific device.
    Offset Defines translation and rotation values to move the VR world.
  9. In the Parameters area, click Continuous Alignment to reposition the seat buck during review.

    This might be the case, for example, when doing visibility assessments in a car interior through the windscreen and rear window in a 5-sided CAVE.

    The alignment is redone every frame, and you can rotate the seat buck during the session with an immediate realignment.

    As many seat bucks have their trackers attached on a pole, the tracker moves when the person in the seat moves. To avoid a jitter in the VR display, indicate the rotation and translation thresholds in the Translation Threshold and Rotation Threshold boxes.

  10. Click Align at the bottom of the dialog box.

    Important: You can click Align only if the tracker chosen in the Tracker list is available.

    Your virtual scene is aligned according to the defined options.
  11. To exit the command, click Viewpoints .