ZapBox Controller Triggers in ZapWorks Studio

Hello,

I have been trying to see what ZapWorks Studio can do with ZapBox.
Now, I managed to change the controller to a 3D model but I still am wondering how to work with the trigger on the controller.
I have been searching around but can’t seem to find anything about it.
Anyone able to help?
Thanks in advance.

Koko.

We are wondering about how to use the triggers as well, any infos on this @simon @Mark @chris.holton ?

Hi @frans @Koko

Sorry for missing this earlier. We haven’t yet implemented this on the computer vision side, but it’s high up the list of priorities for October.

We’re hoping an initial implementation won’t take too long but accuracy is a bit unknown until we get further along with the implementation. Eventually we want to expose the trigger position as an analog input, but given the tolerances involved in manual manufacture we might have to also solve for the size of the gap between the collar and the handle on all the different sides.

We’ll push out the functionality as soon as we have an initial implementation, probably just with an assumption for the collar position. I’d imagine it will be more than accurate enough for “on/off” usage but maybe not up to the analog brush-size control I want for ZapBrush for instance.

I’ll update you here when there’s something you can test.

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Great to hear! On/off will be enough to fire our arsenal of digital weaponry :slight_smile: But the more precise you can get it, the better of course.

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I was looking at the triggers and was wondering who well they will work. One idea I had was a fighter pilot. say you put the controller between your legs like in a jet you cant see the trigger.

Steve

Ps. if you need a tester for the trigger let me know :smile:

My colleague Tom has been making great progress on getting the triggers functional. Here’s a teaser video:

You can see we’re exposing both a binary on/off input (used to do the red/green switch on the overlay) and the analog input (see the bar at the bottom of the video). The analog one is a little noisy but still probably useful for certain situations, so we’ll pass it on to content developers and see what they come up with.

We’re aiming to have an updated ZapBox app release for the end of the year, which will feature:

  • Trigger support (first version ready to go)
  • Improved lens calibration (mainly complete, needs some UI tweaks)
  • Improved map building (mainly complete, small UI tweaks left)
  • More content in launch menu, and a way for us to update that menu outside of app updates (some extra content ready to go, UI updates still needed)
  • Pointcode performance and tracking improvements (in progress)
  • Android fixes for some more devices (in progress)

So still much to do, but wanted to provide a small progress update at least.

@steve - the triggers and controllers in general are just cardboard, so need to be seen by the device to be reported through to content developers. For the inputs to work, the app will need to see both the “diamond” at the top with the codes on, and also the “collar” that moves up and down when the trigger is pressed. Our early testing is quite positive about the range of controller angles where the trigger still functions, so it’s a real relief that the trigger design that we did a year ago is actually workable on the software side :slight_smile:

Looking good! Can’t wait to try it!

Hey Simon, can the triggers be used yet? :grinning:

Hi Frans, Trigger support will be in the next ZapBox app update. The general Zappar platform has seen quite a lot of updates too (more news on those soon), so we want to merge all those in to the ZapBox branch and do a release from there. The aim is to have the update ready in the next couple of weeks, so shouldn’t be too much longer to wait.

Simon

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Hay Simon
We miss you… it’s been more then a couple of weeks. Would love to try out the slider/ button.
I have been holding off working on things.

Steve

I’ve been looking for this function but cannot find it.
Is it released yet and I missed it, or is it not out in the wild?
Thanks!

Hi Peter,

See the post here:

The ZapWorks wrapper for ZapBox tracking still uses the old target file, so you’ll need to manually create a TargetFinder using the zpp I shared on that post. See the example code to see how it all works, and feel free to ask if you have any more questions!

Simon

Hi. I tried that but seems to be having a hard time making the code work :frowning:

Can you describe the problem you get in more detail? Does just previewing the app from that other thread work correctly for you, or have you tried to modify it in some way?

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Your code works just fine.
I meant to say, I tried doing similar code to my own project. I can’t seem to make the controller pull its trigger.

Hi @simon,
Just added this code to my zapbox experience… with the code added the objects attached to the zapbox tracker map aren’t visible… you can see the controller and anything not attached to the map though. Any suggestions? I added the zapbox_trigger_controllers_withworld.zpt as suggested

Hi!

I’ve posted a new thread to describe how you can adjust Studio’s current ZapBox support to also obtain access to the inputs. That’s the way I’d recommend doing things for now, and hopefully it will help to fix whatever problems you are having with the approach described here.

I’m going to close this thread now, but please feel free to leave comments and questions on the new one I created.

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