Teacher trying to set up 20 seated play area Vive stations in one classroom, is it possible?

[toddlich]

I have read about the interference issues with multiple room-scale play areas in one room but can I just use 1 base station per student in seated play area mode and avoid those problems?  My idea is to mount one base station on a large PVC pipe sticking up just behind the computer monitor and facing the students HMD. ---Or am I going to get the interference problem from the base stations of the students seated to the left and right 1 meter away?

[HackPerception]

  - I am sending you an email with more info via Viveport's ticketing system. 

 

A high level public response would basically say that that SteamVR 1.0 tracking is not suitable for this use-case due to the optical sync requirements of 1.0 tracking. This is a use case for 2.0 tracking and Vive Pro.

 

You will not be able to set up more than 1 pair of 1.0 basestations in a room without providing a physical barrier like a curtain between the station pairs; you cannot simply mount a 1.0 station at each student's desk without isolating the stations - the optical sync system will not allow this (specifically the IR flash). 

 

The suggested way to build something like this out would be to divide your 13x13m area into two or three tracked volumes and then place 4 2.0 base stations in locations which would cover each of the volumes with as much overlap as possible. While you can drive multiple Vives off 1.0 stations; there are pretty definitive limits on the size of the tracked volume you can drive with 1.0 tracking and it's a downright UX nightmare to try and configure multiple 1.0 tracking volumes in a single room as you physically have to isolate 1.0 station pairs. 

[toddlich]

Hi David,

 

Ouch. that hurts bad. I just got all the gear shipped down to my school in South America and can not send the equipment back to upgrade to VivePros. But let me ask you some questions and maybe I can pin down what will be the best case solution:

 

1) If all the student stations are seated play areas as opposed to room scale, won't they just need one base station laser sweeping their HMD to have proper tracking?

2) I was thinking I could do this (diagram).

3) how far do the lasers sweeps reach? Would the student station in the upper left corner get 3 base station sweeps (two side walls facing that way + the one on the cabinet?) and if so, maybe I could shut off the base station and only turn it on when there is just a room scale along going on. 

4) could I build some opaque side blinders to curtail the degrees of sweep in order so that each station just receives laser sweeps from max of two base stations?

5) if everyone is doing just seated and the lasers sweep is 20-30meters (as I think I read somewhere) would just mounting one base station in the front of the room and having all students face that way during a seated play area be enough. Or I could put two, one in each corner and it sweeps the whole room and be adequate?

6) I am a bit confused regarding question #5. If the play areas can only be a max of 5mx5m with 1.0 base stations, it would seem to me then that the laser sweeps from across the room would not interfere/be recognized for seated play areas on the far side of the room, no?

 

Todd