We have a series of VG onboarding tasks to show how to tackle different practical use cases using VirtualGrasp in a VR application. In VirtualGrasp SDK, they are packed in VirtualGrasp\Scenes\onboarding.

Task Description

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Interaction behaviors wanted

  • Radio’s body is physically reacting to the environment and gravity
  • Radio’s antenna should rotate in a cone-shaped joint range (using VG_Articulation cone joint).
  • Radio’s two knobs are to be rotated like as a revolute joint with certain angular range (using VG_Articulation revolute joint).
  • When one hand grasp the radio body, the other hand should be able to easily grasp knobs (NOTE this is a challenging object selection problem when a smaller object like knobs are close with a bigger radio object).
  • Can dissembling the antenna and two knobs from the radio body when hand grasping on them and pulling farther away.
  • After the antenna or two knobs are dissembled, they should also physically react to the environment and gravity.

Tips for VR developers

  • Which joint type should be assigned to the antenna and two knobs?
  • How to use selection weight to make small object like knobs that are near the big radio body easily selected and grasped?
  • How to dissembling radio’s parts by runtime changing object’s VG joint types.

Solution

In VirtualGrasp SDK, we packed the solution of this task in VirtualGrasp\Scenes\onboarding.

VirtualGrasp\Scenes\onboarding\VG_Onboarding.unity

//VirtualGrasp\Scenes\onboarding\Scripts\ChangeSelectionWeight.cs:

using UnityEngine;
using VirtualGrasp;

/** 
 * ChangeSelectionWeight shows as a tutorial on how to runtime change object
 * selection weight to affect how easy an object can be selected for interaction with VG.
 */
public class ChangeSelectionWeight : MonoBehaviour
{
    public Transform m_dependent_object;
    public float m_releasedWeight = 1.0f;
    public float m_graspedWeight = 20.0f;

    void Start()
    {
        VG_Controller.OnObjectFullyReleased.AddListener(ObjectReleased);
        VG_Controller.OnObjectGrasped.AddListener(ObjectGrasped);

        if (m_dependent_object == null)
            m_dependent_object = transform.parent;
    }

    void ObjectReleased(VG_HandStatus hand)
    {
        if (hand.m_selectedObject == m_dependent_object)
            VG_Controller.SetObjectSelectionWeight(transform, m_releasedWeight);
    }

    void ObjectGrasped(VG_HandStatus handStatus)
    {
        if (handStatus.m_selectedObject == m_dependent_object)
            VG_Controller.SetObjectSelectionWeight(transform, m_graspedWeight);        
    }
}

is the script showing how to use API function SetObjectSelectionWeight to tune up and down the selection weight in runtime. This script is attached to the two knobs, and the main radio body would be m_dependent_object; as a result, once the radio is grasped by one hand, the selection weight of the two knobs will be tuned up to m_graspedWeight so that the knobs can be easily selected for grasping by the other hand. The logic may not be perfect, however the main goal in this script is to show the use cases of selection weight.

Note, in this example, even when we don’t tune up selection weights on the knobs, the selection still works well.

//VirtualGrasp\Scenes\onboarding\Scripts\DissembleWithDistance.cs:

using UnityEngine;
using VirtualGrasp;

/** 
 * DissembleWithDistance shows as a tutorial on how to use the VG_Controller.ChangeObjectJoint
 * function to dissemble parts that are initially non-physical objects.
 */
public class DissembleWithDistance : MonoBehaviour
{
    public Transform new_parent;

    public float m_disassembleDistance = 0.2f;

    void Update()
    {        
        foreach (VG_HandStatus hand in VG_Controller.GetHands())
        {
            if(hand.m_selectedObject == transform && hand.IsHolding()
                && VG_Controller.GetObjectJointType(transform) != VG_JointType.FLOATING)
            {
                VG_Controller.GetSensorPose(hand.m_avatarID, hand.m_side, out Vector3 sensor_pos, out Quaternion sensor_rot);
                if((sensor_pos - hand.m_hand.position).magnitude > m_disassembleDistance)
                {
                    VG_Controller.ChangeObjectJoint(transform, VG_JointType.FLOATING);
                    transform.SetParent(new_parent);

                    // Set this object as physical object
                    if(!transform.gameObject.TryGetComponent<Rigidbody>(out Rigidbody rb))
                    {
                        rb = transform.gameObject.AddComponent<Rigidbody>();
                        rb.useGravity = true;
                    }
                    if (!transform.TryGetComponent<Collider>(out _))
                        transform.gameObject.AddComponent<BoxCollider>();
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

is the script to use API function GetSensorPose to check when sensor controlled wrist position (sensor_pos) is too far from the avatar hand’s wrist position (hand.m_hand.position) by a certain threshold (m_disassembleDistance), then API function ChangeObjectJoint is used to change object joint type to freely floating.