Sado Rabaudi
The Varjo line of headsets provides access to high quality, professional features such as human eye resolution, mixed reality and hand tracking, providing researchers with excellent tools for increasing the immersion in their studies. Here’s how to get these headsets up and running with Vizard and SightLab VR Pro, two powerful software tools for VR development. Together, they greatly simplify the process of creating VR applications for research experiments, providing a wide variety of out-of-the-box tools for experiment creation, as well as saving, viewing, and playing back data.
Before getting started you can check the system requirements for various Varjo headsets here. For more information also see the set up instructions on the Varjo website.
1. First you need to create a Varjo account on their website here https://account.varjo.com/login . You can create either a commercial or personal account. Once an account is created log in to your account.
2. Download the Varjo Base software.
3. Note: you may be prompted to also install Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 X64 Minimum Runtime if this is your first time installing the Varjo base software.
4. Start Varjo base and login, then run the initial setup and hardware check on your headset (a screen will pop up to allow you to select which headset you are using).
5. Connect the cables for your headset. For the Aero it uses one headset adapter to one display port and one USB 3.0/3.1 port, for the XR-3 and VR-3 it uses two headset adaptors to two display ports and two USB 3.0/3.1 ports.
6. Enable OpenXR, as Vizard connects to Varjo via OpenXR (SteamVR will also work, but does not give you eye tracking). Go to the System tab within the Varjo Base app. Under the Compatibility section make sure OpenXR is enabled.
7. Set up tracking:
8. For eye tracking calibration navigate to the Tools menu in Varjo Base, select the Analytics window and choose Eye tracking > Calibrate (you can choose to remember the calibration so you don’t have to do this every time and you can also use a quick calibration method).
9. For connecting to Vizard, see the page on OpenXR and the examples in the \examples\openxr\ folder. The Varjo can also be added and set up in vizconnect. Here is code for running the Varjo in Vizard:
import viz
import openxr
# Initialize graphics window before initializing OpenXR
viz.setMultiSample(8)
viz.go()
# Check that OpenXR client is valid
xr = openxr.getClient()
# Initialize HMD
hmd = openxr.HMD()
viz.link(hmd.getSensor(), viz.MainView)
10. For SightLab VR Pro you can select “Varjo” from the dropdown list of hardware to start using the headset and collecting eye tracking data. After setting up your experiment you can then run it in the Varjo, choose configuration options and collect and playback visualizations of the data.
11. For the XR-3 see the mixed reality examples in Vizard and SightLab for using the passthrough.
12. Chroma-Key:
For more information on how you can utilize hardware such as the Varjo line of headsets along with additional VR headsets and setting up VR labs, or for any information on any of WorldViz’s products contact sales@worldviz.com.
