VRED is ready for what we are calling VR 3.0 indicating the software and hardware reaching a new level of maturity which matches the expectation of users.

Early adopters, content creators and general users alike now demand high resolution, improved tracking,untethered Head Mounted Displays, and they also expect their chosen immersive platform to provide the ability not just collaborate, but to allow users to do so in new innovative ways that wouldn’t have been possible without immersive technology. The champions of XR within organisations see immersive experiences as a way of connecting teams and ideas, but to do this in the current climate of security breaches and increasing amounts of sensitive data available, the selected tools and technologies selected must follow the guidelines that a companies IT department operate.

VRED now supports multiplayer experiences out of the box, removing barriers to shared interaction and shared review sessions allowing for innovative collaboration within the VRED community of users within an organisation.  This could be done previously with lengthy programming of apps and tools but with software including VR collaboration (2019.2) and Sceneplates (2019.1) we strongly believe that more users will be able to communicate their design and engineering ideas more accurately across their organisation, suppliers, remote teams and clients.

Combined with MX this data can further be protected and controlled to ensure sessions are compliant to and security guidelines that are operating within your business.

 

 

VR Collaboration

  • In VRED 2019.2, there is a new Collaboration Module (Menu > Interaction > Collaboration), for setting up a session between several VR and Desktop users. This feature is available in Autodesk VRED 2019.2 Design & Autodesk VRED 2019.2 Professional. A VRED Clusters Service is required and used as an exchange server to synchronise the participants and several scene changes. For audio conferences, we recommend using Skype, Zoom, Mumble, or any other available audio meeting service. The setup is easy; participants can be invited directly via E-Mail, calendar appointment, or plain text, which contain all relevant information for joining a session. We also automatically create and attach a VRED-Collaboration Session file to the Calendar and E-Mail invitation. This contains the relevant information and makes joining a session easy. Sessions can also be protected with a password.
  1. For large VRED scenes, it is useful to share the model with participants upfront and load the scene manually on each client.We believe MX would be a great way to share scenes.Contact us for further details.
  2. Models can be shared using “Share current scene to all”. This functionality uploads the scene to the specified server and gets automatically downloaded on the participant’s site.
  3. As 3rd option, we provide “Share network scene to all”. If you prefer to store your VRED scene on a shared network drive, this feature simply passes a file path to the participants.
    Note: All participants need access to the network drive.
Please accept statistics, marketing cookies to watch this video.
  • Once a session is running, all active participants can be seen in the Collaboration Module and inside the VR and Desktop scene. Each is represented by an avatar with their individual color, name, and used VR device. StarVR, XTAL, Vive, Oculus, and WinMR are currently supported and represented with the corresponding icon and controllers. Participants sharing the same real-world tracking space must enter the same Room name. This will enable the safety twin feature for avoiding physical collisions. Desktop users are displayed as a tablet and can become a spectator, looking through another participant’s view.
  • We now provide teleporting out-of-the-box to teleport onto geometry or the ground plane. The ground plane can be calibrated in VR or pre-defined via python to teleport through geometry.
  • In addition, we have added a laser-pointer for VR- and Desktop users to point and interact with Touch Sensors and HTML content.
  • All Variant Sets and viewpoints in a scene are automatically detected and shown in our new VR Menu. Access it through your VR controllers. For programmers, we also added the possibility to extend the VR Menu with customized tools, QT UIs, or HTML5 content. See example scene > vr > CustomMenuButton.py.
  • Desktop users have the possibility to jump into anyone else’s view, using the “Show current view of selected users” feature. Use this so a bigger audience can follow the VR user’s experience, without being in VR.

Sceneplates

What are Sceneplates?

Sceneplates are a set of planes bound to the viewpoint. They consist of frontplates (previously known as overlays) and backplates. They can be used in combination to enhance or further customise an experience for a given audience.

Why are they important?

Sceneplates (particularly frontplates) are a crucial tool in making scene more informative, interactive and accessible. For example, you have a client, colleague or manager who wants to see the latest model of a vehicle, but customised to their specifications. Instead of the basic model, they want the premium package, in a different colour, with a different paint finish and the luxury upholstery. With VRED, you can create a frontplate with the functionality to change these attributes, so the customer can take a virtual tour of their customised vehicle.

 

What is a Frontplate?

A frontplate is an element (plane) that exists in front of your product. It could be an image, text, or HMI/HTML web content. You can add transition effects to the frontplanes to enable them to fade in and out. Frontplates can be used for simple things like watermarks, trademarks, product text and company logos. For something a bit more complex, you can create an interactive overlayed component such as menus, for changing elements of your product like colour, texture, materials, orientation and even some of the geometry.

What is a Backplate?

A backplate is an element (plane) that exists behind the product in your scene. Use a static image or sequence of images as your backplate to show your product in a different location or at different times of day.

  • CGI Workflows require an effective way of handling video footage and imagery in the rendering tool as well as easy batch processes. Therefore, Autodesk have introduced a NEW Sceneplate Editor that unifies the known Overlay Editor with the Backplate Feature. This new module simplifies the workflow with multiple Front and Backplates in one scene and makes organizing different viewpoints or environments in combination with different plates much more intuitive in the Variant.
  • It is now possible to use Backplates in combination with Animated Textures which allows an easy handling of movie footage in a VRED scene. In addition, a new Sceneplate Selection Mode was added to transform, scale and rotate plates directly in the 3D Viewport, also, the Asset Manager has now a new Tab to store Front and Backplates.

 

 

General Improvements

  • The HMD camera matrix is now respected when creating new viewpoints, while being in VR. This works in the Camera Editor UI and also with the existing Python command addViewPoint(‘Name’, True). Use it to set up Variant Set or controller button mapping to capture the current view in VR.
  • It is no longer necessary to create collision objects for Touch Sensors and WebEngines with Python to interact with your VR Hands. This is now automatically done when starting the VR/HMD mode and can also be disabled using Preferences > Virtual Reality.
  • Due to some companies’s network- and port scanning restrictions, the VRED MediaServer was not able to send python code embedded in Java, using the network port, to VRED. We have added an additional Java Class vred.executePython() that can send code directly to VRED, when it´s used in the Media Editor.
  • It is now possible to loop Animation Clips infinitely by setting Cycles in the Clip Editor to -1.
  • Autodesk have also updated to the latest VRgineers XTAL SDK, version 2.33.0.
  • A new example file, showing the VIVE Tracker binding, was added to the example folder (File > Open Examples > OpenVRTracker.vpb).
  • Decoupled the Python API for the Collaboration Module

 

Get in touch

For any further assistance please contact the Helpdesk on +44(0)345 241 5111 or alternatively email Autodesk.Helpdesk@MajentaSolutions.com.

For advice on upgrading to 2019 or any of the services we offer, please contact Sharon Newton on +44(0)2476 308517 or alternatively email Sharon.Newton@MajentaSolutions.com.

 

Source: Autodesk Forum – https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vred-forum/what-s-new-vred-2019-2-design-amp-professional/td-p/8353402

 

Back to Blog Home
Contact Us