Dive into your InfraWorks 360 Model with Oculus Rift

InfraWorks 360 offers an easy way to experience your models through an Oculus Rift device. It is not an officially supported feature and it can change in future as well, but we want to give you a way to get the great experience to immerse yourself into a city model. This is a great way to understand and assess new design concepts and alternatives created with InfraWorks 360. 

Oculus DK1 is working with InfraWorks nicely, at the moment we are looking into ways how to add the new Oculus DK2 device.

Here are the main steps to connect your Oculus DK1 device and immerse yourself into an InfraWorks model:

1. Add a registry key

Add registry key "OculusRiftEnabled"=dword:00000001

to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\InfraWorks 360

This is true for the current InfraWorks 360 release.
In case you are testing the InfraWorks 360 within the InfraWorks 360 Rolling Sandbox, add the registry here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\InfraWorks 360 Rolling Sandbox

 

2. Connect the Oculus device and Restart InfraWorks 360

You will get a new Icon within the presentation tools.

 

3. Immerse yourself into the model

You can access two modes:

1. Head tracking mode which recognizes your head movements when viewing the model
2. Walk through mode which is without head tracking and good for navigation through a model

Using the icon you can click through the modes

• 1st Click: Head tracking mode turned on
• 2nd Click: Head tracking mode turned off
• 3rd Click: Walk through mode turned on
• 4th Click: Walk through mode turned off and so on

For both modes your screen will display the two images the Oculus user will see through the device (any the users eyes/brain will merge to one). Additionally, once connected, the Oculus device will reset your screen resolution, you should use this resolution.

You are ready to rock now, have fun.

Ah OK, wear the device to get the full experience :-)

4. Notes, Tips & tricks

• The experience is best when you navigate yourself to the desired position in the model. Bookmarks help a lot.
• In walk through mode a game pad for navigation makes a lot of fun. This post describes how to Navigate InfraWorks with a game pad. Otherwise use mouse or navigation keys on the keyboard.
• Using a laptop it is not possible to connect a third screen, what you would like to have when presenting to a group
• We haven’t done anything to support the new Oculus DK2, but the walking mode should work (not the head tracking). There is a great post on the From the Ground Up Blog.

Please send us your feedback, we are highly interested where you would use Oculus and InfraWorks 360 in your daily work, how you would like to see it officially implemented, …

infraworks360-feedback@autodesk.com

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