Google Cardboard

[Dave Smart]

Hi Guys,

We've started to experiment with Google Cardboard recently and will hopefully have some augmented reality demos very soon.  If you want to join the fun, then order yourself and google cardboard kit from Amazon and join the party!

I've attached a little demo SPK to give you a taster but it's still very much a work in progress :)

Please note, you will need a fairly fast phone which is equivalent to a Galaxy S4 or greater in order to get decent performance.

Also you may need to tweek the line that hides the camera preview: cam = app.CreateCameraView( 0.001, 0.001, "VGA" )  with slightly larger values to make it work on your phone.

Regard

David

[sankarshan dudhate]

Hi Dave,
will it work with unofficial cardboard kits ?

[Dave Smart]

Yes, it should work fine.

[Alex F]

Doesn't work on my device :(
Android 4.4.2

[Steve Garman]

The cardboard spk doesn't work for me either, though it's hardly a fair test as I don't have a cardboard.

Let's just separate out the bit that creates the duplicate images.

This works for me.

//Called when application is started.
function OnStart()
{  
        app.SetOrientation( "Landscape" );
         
        //Create horizontal layout that fills the screen.
        lay = app.CreateLayout( "Linear", "Horizontal,FillXY,VCenter" );
        lay.SetBackground( "/res/drawable/pattern_carbon", "repeat" );
 
        //Create camera view control.
        cam = app.CreateCameraView( 0.6, 0.8 );        
        cam.SetOnReady( OnReady );
        cam.SetMargins( 0, 0, 0.04, 0 );
        lay.AddChild( cam );  
               
        //Add main layout to app.
        app.AddLayout( lay );
       
}



function OnReady()
{
  var w = cam.GetImageWidth();
        var h = cam.GetImageHeight();
        //Create vertical layout on right for other stuff.
        layRight = app.CreateLayout( "Linear", "Vertical" );
        lay.AddChild( layRight );

        //Create image control for previewing pictures.
        img = app.CreateImage( null, 0.18, 0.22,"fix",w,h );  
        img.SetBackColor( "#ff000000" );
        layRight.AddChild( img );      
        img.SetMargins( 0,0,0,0.05 );

        img2 = app.CreateImage( null, 0.18, 0.22,"fix",w,h );  
        img2.SetBackColor( "#ff000000" );
        layRight.AddChild( img2 );  
        cam.SetDuplicateImage( img,img2 );  
        cam.StartPreview();
}

[Alex F]

Thanks works now :)

[Alan Hendry]

Hi,

Doesn't seem to work for me

DS 2.02, Android 8.1.0 (screen is blank)

Regards, ah

On Wednesday, 10 August 2016 at 09:04:28 UTC+1 Alex F wrote:

Thanks works now :)

[Alan Hendry]

Hi,

I've got it working (main change was to make camera view 0.01x0.01, which technically shows a tiny view in the top left)
And improved it slightly (now each eye gets images of 50% screen width, text is white and nearer vcenter of image).

Images could do with moving down a bit.

Technically the images will appear a little distorted in a VR Viewer, 

but you'd need a plugin to use the Google VR API to get the distortion mesh for the specific device and apply it.   

(With original Cardboard viewer you need to cut a hole for your camera to see thru).

Regards, ah

[Alan Hendry]

Hi,

If I run the cardboard SPK it works, but if I build and install the APK then it doesn't show the camera images at all.

(It doesn't seem to ask for permission to access the camera when installing, so I suspect it's not asking for the permission).

The show camera preview example builds and installs and runs correctly.

Regards, ah

[Steve Garman]

It works for me as an APK if I add this line at the beginning

_AddPermissions( "Camera" )

But to be honest I didn't try it without

[Steve Garman]

This turns out to be part of a fairly significant problem (unless I'm being very silly) that affect many app.Add methods

app.Create versions that need to request dangerous permissions do so

their app.Add equivalents do not

[Steve Garman]

Looking st this in more detail I can see why it got missed

When implementing the app.Add versions, it probably seemed unlikely that there were any visual controls that trigger a dangerous permission

There are vanishingly few of them

So it's much less of a problem than my simplistic text search of DroidScript.js suggested but obviously it does need fixing

[Dave]

app.AddCameraView needs to be scanned for I presume Steve :)

[Steve Garman]

Yep that'll be the one Dave

Obviously I thought we hadn't had enough drama lately