Multiple Station VR Lab Progress

[Bighouse]

Well, we now have four functioning Vive Pro stations all working with SteamVR within the same area, served by 6 base station 2.0s. As we added more base stations to the perimeter of the space, the tracking seems to become more stable on each of the setups. The number of differently "seen" base stations differs on each setup. One base station is not visible to one of the setups at all due to the odd configuration of the room's interior walls. But even that station sees three base stations. One station sees all six base stations, though, of course, will only utilize four for tracking.

We used the bluetooth configuration utility to autoscan the room and then made minor number changes to the duplicated numbered base stations. It only needs to be done on one of the stations and afterward, each other station knows the correct number of each base station.

Some hassles: In order to make it work, we had to create separate email accounts for each station. We just used a Gmail account, for now, but hope to migrate that to our school domain in the future. It will be very problematic to use a Gmail account for a classroom full of 25 stations- which is where we will be heading in the Fall of 2019. I'm hoping to have a better system, like an arcade type of distribution, in the future. Vive, if you're listening, please get in touch with me and offer me a solution that would work. Heck, we'll even consider being your Northern California testing station for such a classroom effort, with your help.

Our next phase is to install all the (non) Vive software we'll be using for our students to work with: Unreal Engine, Unity, 3dsMax, AutoCAD, Revit, Sketchup, Inventor, Rhino3D, Enscape3D, Lumion. And then all the SteamVR apps that we want students to use for becoming familiar with VR and even some games for just enjoying the entire VR experience.

None of the stations have room-scale use. All are for standing/sitting use only. I have plans to allow for that in the future.

[TU VR]

I was hoping to see more info here either from other users or from some official source.  Without going into too many details of how this 'project' happened, I just need some direction from anyone who has dealt with a similar situation.  I have a 'VR' lab being established with 13 HE desktop (VR spec'd out).  13 Vive Pros purchased.  The 'thinking' is to use all 13 in one VR lab.  Looking for some direction on setup in this scenario.  Initial use will be with health VR app 3d Organon.  How base stations are needed to utilize 13 Vive Pros in same room/space?

[HackPerception]

@TU VR - it totally depends on your physical space, what size VR bays you're trying to create, etc...

You can have upto 16 base stations in a single shared arena space as long as each basestation has been configured to occupy 1 of the 16 available unique channels.

Generally, you'd line the walls of your space with stations spaced out every ~5m or so specifically trying to create overlapping sections.

Depending on the shape/geometry of your room you'd try to find a configuration that maximizes the coverage for each individual headset as long as you keep in mind the range for the 2.0 basestations is ~5m.

When dealing with that many basestations, I'd recommend downloading an app like BS Companion to manage the basestations power states.

We'd recommend taking 1-4 headsets and tying them to a handful of stations through roomsetup. When doing roomsetup, we recommend only having power supplied to the stations that you specifically want to be the primary stations for that specific headset to help ensure roomsetup comes out the way you want it to. If you run roomsetup with a bunch of stations visible in the space, it may create undesirable effects.

[HackPerception]

@TU VR

Here's examples for 4 stations. You'd just scale this up bearing in mind that each headset can only have a max of 4 primary base stations.

[Haiticloud]

@TU VR@Bighouse@LobakiVR@toddlich

Hello,
Hope all is well.

I need to setup a VR Classroom for 11 (SEATED) Students at a small College in Boston, MA

I will appreciate if you could share your experiences with your current/past VR Classrooms and any teaching resources.

• HTC Pro Eye Office Inch virtual reality system - Monitor

All the best.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Haiticloud

[HackPerception]

@Haiticloud SteamVR -> Developer Options -> Developer Settings -> Quick Calibrate is super helpful for mass setups.

For something like this, you might need to use more than 4 2.0 base stations. If you do, we recommend spacing your stations out so that each HMD has solid visibility of 2-4 stations within ~4.5m range. When running calibration, we recommend only supplying power to the 4 "primary" stations that you'd want to calibrate against, and physically unplugging the other stations in the room during calibration to ensure

Be sure to either use base station power management, or use physical/smart switches to turn the base stations off when not in use. This will maximize the lifespan of the base stations.

Engage, VictoryXR are some leaders in the space right now. This is a good twitter account to follow: @steve_bambury

 

[Haiticloud]

@HackPerception

Thank you very much for the recommendations.

@EnGAGE in VR, @VictoryVR,

I will appreciate your insights as well.

For the VR Classroom, each Student will have their own pair of 2.0 base Stations.
I want to setup the standing-only Play area for each student.

I will setup a room-scale play area for the Instructor and as @HackPerson suggested, I can turn off the students' Base Stations as needed, during the lecture or glass presentation.

I need some advice on how to partition the room to avoid any interference between the 22 base stations.

Thank you in advance for your inputs.

[HackPerception]

@Haiticloud You probably don't want or need to use that many stations. Figure out how to use as few as required, and stash the spare ones to use as replacements.

Basestations are mechanical devices that spin very quickly like hard drives - it's best to turn them off while not in use to maximize lifespan.

[Martinez45]

On 3/30/2021 at 9:56 PM, HackPerception said:

@TU VR

Here's examples for 4 stations. You'd just scale this up bearing in mind that each headset can only have a max of 4 primary base stations.

Really Amazing I'm interested.