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Tip

Installers for the StretchSense App for SteamVR App can be downloaded from the My Account → Software Downloads section of the StretchSense website.

Description

Version

/wiki/spaces/P/pages/494338050
3.2.0-LITE
Steam Desktop Client
latest
SteamVR
2.7.4
StretchSense Driver Add-On for SteamVR (Included with StretchSense App for SteamVR
App
installer)
latest
StretchSense App for SteamVR
App
0.
7
9.0

Hardware

This guide supports the following hardware options:

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  1. Go to SteamVR Settings → Startup / Shutdown → Manage SteamVR Add-Ons

  2. Toggle Open Gloves OFF (if installed)

  3. Run the StretchSense App for SteamVR App installer.

  4. Go to SteamVR Settings → Startup / Shutdown → Manage SteamVR Add-Ons

  5. Check stretchsense is toggled ON.

  6. Restart SteamVR

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  1. Install Hand Engine v3.2.0-Lite

  2. Open Hand Engine and go to Edit → Settings → Open SDK

  3. Make sure Enabled is switched ON (should be ON by default) and that the following settings are toggled ON:

    1. Streaming Ports: 9400

    2. performer/glove/status: ON

    3. animation/rotation: ON

    4. animation/slider/all: ON

    5. animation/capacitances/all: ON

      Screenshot 2024-08-19 150350.png

  4. Ensure Windows Firewall has not blocked the outgoing connections on port 9400. This is used to communicate with the StretchSense Driver for SteamVR.

Configuring StretchSense App for SteamVR

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  1. Ensure SteamVR is running.

  2. Launch the StretchSense App for SteamVR App.

  3. A message should appear, saying that the connection is successful. If it doesn’t, try restarting your PC, then follow steps 1-3.

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Prior to training or loading a model you must calibrate the glove. This step is currently required each time you start the StretchSense App for SteamVR App, even if you have already calibrated the glove in Hand Engine. These normalize the range of motion that your hand can perform and sets a baseline for any trained button models.

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Left Hand

Right Hand

Image (28).jpegImage (27).jpeg
  1. In the StretchSense App for SteamVR App, select Tundra from the tracker list, then restart SteamVR when prompted to automatically update the tracker offsets in the StretchSense Driver Add-On for SteamVR.

    Screenshot 2024-08-19 155932.png

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  1. For HTC Vive Tracker 3.0, mount with the status led pointing away from the fingers.

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  1. In the StretchSense App for SteamVR App, select Vive from the tracker list, then restart SteamVR when prompted to automatically update the tracker offsets in the StretchSense Driver Add-On for SteamVR.

    Screenshot 2024-08-19 155948.png

Training a Controller Model in StretchSense App for SteamVR

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For stability, we recommend training a left-hand model for locomotion / joystick controls and training the right-hand model for shooting/object interaction or toggling/activating running/jumping to allow your virtual character to move and perform actions at the same time.

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only on your left hand.

Note

Always calibrate and train with the trackers mounted to your gloves. This ensures the calibration accurately reflects the additional weight and pull from the mount and trackers.

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Tip

After training a few gestures, we recommend saving incremental numbered versions of your model, in case you make a mistake and need to roll back. Good points to save a model are:

  • After initial idle binding.

  • After binding the Grip Grab and LT/RT buttons.

  • After binding the Menu button.

  • After binding the A and B buttons.

  • After binding the 4 Up/Down/Left/Right directional buttons, prior to binding UpLeft/UpRight/DownLeft/DownRight.

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  • .

  • After binding multi-button gestures.

  • After fully training gestures for a single hand.

  1. Calibrate the Left-Hand Controller and Right-Hand Controllers as described in calibrating glove data.

  2. On a freshly calibrated left hand controller model, for each button on the list click Capture and perform the gestures listed under Training a Right-Hand Controller Model for Interaction.

    Screenshot 2024-08-26 164149.pngImage RemovedScreenshot 2024-10-24 100103.pngImage Added

Tuning a Previously Trained Model

Note

Models trained between different versions of the StretchSense App for SteamVR App may fail to load, so you may have to train these again from scratch.

Tip

From v0.9.0 and later, when starting the StretchSense App for SteamVR your previously loaded model will automatically load on startup.

  1. Perform glove calibration for both hands.

  2. Click “Load Model” Load Model and select a left-hand model using the file browser.

  3. Click Recapture Tune next to the button to capture an updated gesture. This will add more training data to the original capture to improve the button’s gesture detection and the original training data will be retained.

    Screenshot 2024-08-26 164215.pngImage RemovedScreenshot 2024-10-24 100128.pngImage Added

  4. Repeat for the right-hand.

Tip

You can refine and improve a trained model over a few SteamVR sessions by taking the Studio Gloves off, recalibrating in the StretchSense App for SteamVR App, then loading the model and checking for flickering between detected buttons. Make any adjustments by capturing using the Tune button over existing button gestures or use the idle pose to refine the “sweet spot” for each button. Eventually you’ll get a robust model that works consistently for your hand.

Training a

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Controller Model for Locomotion & Joystick Controls

We recommend configuring your in-game controls to perform forwards/backwards movement on the left hand up/down stick direction and have the left/right movement of stick control strafing. You will have greater precision by using your entire body to turn in game while using StretchSense gloves . We recommend training only 4 directions first, then training the additional directions to bring the total to 8 when you are comfortable with using the gloves. If also training other buttons on this hand these may impact how accurate the directional buttons can be.

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Pose

...

Name

...

Description

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Idle

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but can optionally train the left or right joystick direction on your right hand if you don’t want to physically turn or prefer to play seated.

Tip

From v0.9.0 of the StretchSense App for SteamVR, training grab + joystick directions are supported. This allows more buttons to be trained while also allowing the joystick to be used on the same hand.

Pose

Name

Description

interact-idle.pngImage Removed

Idle

Make a relaxed pose and move your fingers between being fully extended to a slightly relaxed curled pose. This represents no buttons being pressed.

grab.pngImage Removed

Grip

Pose

Name

Description

d-idle.pngImage Added

Idle

Make the horns gesture, then move your thumb straight up. This represents the centered position of joystick.

d-up.png

Up

Make the horns gesture 🤘 with your thumb forward, parallel to your index finger. This is the most important gesture to have reliable as this is used for the forward direction in smooth locomotion or teleportation in SteamVR Home. Since you will make this gesture a lot, it should be comfortable to perform.

d-left.png

Left

Make the horns gesture 🤘 with your thumb pulled towards the left side of your hand, away from your palm.

d-right.pngImage Removed

Right

Make the horns gesture 🤘 with your thumb pulled towards the right side of your hand, towards your palm.

d-down.pngImage RemovedDown
Tip

The gesture must be mirrored if you are training your right hand, so make the gesture for the right direction instead.

Info

Many games use the right hand’s left/right joystick direction to control smooth turning. We recommend leaving this untrained on the right hand to avoid accidental rotation movement and instead turn your physical body.

d-right.pngImage Added

Right

Make the horns gesture 🤘 with your thumb curled in, with your knuckle arching up and the tip pressing towards middle of your middle finger. This direction is not used often as it is a fatiguing pose for the thumb.

interact-idle.pngImage Removed

Idle

Create an additional idle pose. Make a relaxed pose as pictured and move your fingers between being fully extended to a slightly relaxed curled pose. This represents no buttons being pressed.

Training a Right-Hand Controller Model for Interaction

For object interaction using controller buttons, only a subset of gestures is required. In this guide we have left out the A and B buttons and are just focusing on emulating the grip button for holding objects and trigger buttons for interacting with UI.

  1. Train the below interaction gestures:

pulled towards the right side of your hand, towards your palm.

Tip

The gesture must be mirrored if you are training your right hand, so make the gesture for the left direction instead

Info

Many games use the right hand’s left/right joystick direction to control smooth turning. We recommend leaving this untrained on the right hand to avoid accidental rotation movement and instead turn your physical body.

d-down.pngImage Added

Down

Make the horns gesture 🤘 with your thumb curled in, with your knuckle arching up and the tip pressing towards middle of your middle finger. This direction is not used often as it is a fatiguing pose for the thumb.

interact-idle.pngImage Added

Idle

Create an additional idle pose. Make a relaxed pose as pictured and move your fingers between being fully extended to a slightly relaxed curled pose. This represents no buttons being pressed.

Training a Controller Model for Interaction

For object interaction using controller buttons, only a subset of gestures is required.

Tip

From v0.9.0 of the StretchSense App for SteamVR, the following gestures can be trained on either hand if you also train multi-button gestures afterwards.

Note

In addition to the below gestures, train multi-button gestures to avoid dropping held objects in VR while moving or activating the objects.

  1. Train the below interaction gestures:

Pose

Name

Description

interact-idle.pngImage Added

Idle

Make a relaxed pose and move your fingers between being fully extended to a slightly relaxed curled pose. This represents no buttons being pressed.

grab.pngImage Added

Grab

Make a finger gun pose with your thumb pointing upwards and your middle, ring and little fingers curled.

trigger.pngImage Added

LT/RT

Point gesture with thumb pointing upwards. Fully curl in your index finger, as if you were pulling a real trigger.

menu.pngImage Added

Menu

Touch your little finger to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your little finger. Keep your other fingers extended. This gesture activates the SteamVR Dashboard. Train it so it can be pressed accurately. You may need to go back and train the idle pose again to stop it accidentally triggering.

Info

SteamVR controller bindings for SteamVR Dashboard can be adjusted to change the system/menu button to long press to avoid accidental activation. You can also bind the power button of your Vive 3.0 or Tundra Tracker to be the system/menu button in your SteamVR Dashboard controller bindings within the SteamVR Settings → Controllers menu.

primary-a.pngImage Added

A Button / Primary Button

Touch your middle finger to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your middle finger. Keep your other fingers extended.

secondary-b.pngImage Added

B Button / Secondary Button

Touch your ring finger to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your ring finger. Keep your other fingers extended.

Info

You may need to repeat the Idle pose to compensate for any outlying data introduced with the other buttons. This is less common in v0.9.0 of the StretchSense App for SteamVR and later.

Training Multi-Button Gestures

After training the base set of gestures from the previous tables, you can train button combinations to allow buttons to be pressed at the same time (e.g. Grab + Trigger, Grab + Up, Grab + Down, or A + B).

It can take up to 30-45 minutes to train and tune a model with multi-button gestures, especially if joystick directional inputs are also trained. Be sure to test inside a SteamVR game as your train the model for maximum responsiveness.

Tip

Be sure to use the grab button to refine the activation range after training this list of multi-button gestures.

Note

Before training these gestures, remember to save a backup copy of your model in case you need to roll back.

Pose

Name

Description

trigger.pngImage Added

Grab + LT/RT

Point gesture with thumb pointing upwards and make the grab gesture. Fully curl in your index finger, as if you were pulling a real trigger. This allows held tools and objects like pistols to be fired/activated while held.

Note

Avoid squeezing your index finger too hard as it will make it harder to repeat the gesture.

Image - 2024-10-24T104855.454.jpegImage Added

Grab + A Buttons

Make the grab gesture and touch your thumb to your middle finger, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your middle finger.

Tip

Some SteamVR games may use this to activate a function on a held object (e.g. using a health syringe)

Note

If you also train grab + directional buttons together the down and left/right directions may intersect with this gesture, causing accidental activations. You will need to fine tune the directional controls to avoid this. Alternately don’t train grab + direction buttons if you also want to press A/B at the same time.

Image - 2024-10-24T104849.964.jpegImage Added

Grab + B Buttons

Make the grab gesture and touch your thumb to your ring finger, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your ring finger.

Tip

Some SteamVR games may use this to activate a function on a held object (e.g. ejecting a gun magazine)

Note

If you also train grab + directional buttons together the down and left/right directions may intersect with this gesture, causing accidental activations. You will need to fine tune the directional controls to avoid this. Alternately don’t train grab + direction buttons if you also want to press A/B at the same time.

grab.pngImage Added

Grab

Tune an additional grab pose after you have set the above button combinations. This represents no buttons being activated and will refine the range of the other combos on this list.

Image - 2024-10-24T104844.562.jpegImage Added

A+ B Buttons

Touch your middle and ring fingers to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle parts of both your middle and ring fingers. Keep your index and little finger extended.

Info

This gesture is unlikely to be used in SteamVR games.

Optional Multi-Button Gestures

Note

Additional multi-button gestures are supported, such as the following, but these are experimental. Training these will significantly increase your training time and run the risk of making your trained model unusable. Make sure to save a backup copy of your model first!

  • Trigger + A - Unlikely to be used

  • Trigger + B - Unlikely to be used

  • Trigger + Menu - Unlikely to be used

  • Grab + Menu - Unlikely to be used and hard to perform on the Studio Glove due to the sensor layout.

  • Grab + Trigger + A - Make an index finger pointing gesture with your thumb touching the middle of your middle finger.

  • Grab + Trigger + B - Make an index finger pointing gesture with your thumb touching the middle of your ring finger.

  • Grab + Trigger + A + B - Make a closed fist gesture while training this gesture.

  • Grab + Trigger + Up/Right/Down/Left - This will likely interfere with previously trained base A / B button gestures.

Training Grab and Joystick Directions

In v0.9.0 and onwards of the StretchSense App for SteamVR, holding the grab button and joystick directional movement is supported. Some SteamVR games like Boneworks/Bonelab and frameworks like the Unity XR Interaction Toolkit require you to hold the grab button to carry or move objects using near manipulation mode. If you also want to perform smooth locomotion at the same time while holding these, you will need to train the below gestures in addition to the regular joystick directions.

Note

The Grab + A or B gestures may intersect with this gesture, causing accidental activations. You will need to fine tune the Grab + directional control gestures to avoid this.

Pose

Name

Description

grab.pngImage Added

Grab

This acts as the idle pose for the Grab + other button combination gestures. Make a finger gun pose with your thumb pointing upwards and your middle, ring and little fingers

curled.
Note

Don’t squeeze too hard to avoid overdriving the glove sensors.

trigger.pngImage Removed

RT

Point gesture with thumb pointing upwards. Fully curl in your index finger, as if you were pulling a real trigger.

Note

Avoid squeezing your index finger too hard as it will make it harder to repeat the gesture.

Warning

Currently when using the StretchSense SteamVR App, activating RT will cause the grip button to deactivate. To work around this, you will need to adjust the SteamVR controller bindings to change the grip button to be a Toggle Button. To use this, grab the object once to pin it to your hand, then use RT to activate the held object.

menu.pngImage Removed

Menu

Touch your little finger to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your little finger. Keep your other fingers extended. This gesture activates the SteamVR Dashboard. Train it so it can be pressed accurately. You may need to go back and train the idle pose again to stop it accidentally triggering.

primary-a.pngImage Removed

A Button / Primary Button

Touch your middle finger to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your middle finger. Keep your other fingers extended.

secondary-b.pngImage Removed

B Button / Secondary Button

Touch your ring finger to your thumb, with your thumb resting on the middle part of your ring finger. Keep your other fingers extended.

...

curled.

Image - 2024-10-24T104908.781.jpegImage Added

Up

Make the grab gesture and hold your thumb forward, parallel to your index finger. This is the most important gesture to have reliable as this is used for the forward direction in smooth locomotion or teleportation in SteamVR Home. Since you will make this gesture a lot, it should be comfortable to perform.

Image - 2024-10-24T104900.164.jpegImage Added

Left

Make the grab gesture with your thumb pulled towards the left side of your hand, away from your palm.

Tip

The gesture must be mirrored if you are training your right hand, so make the gesture for the right direction instead.

Info

Many games use the right hand’s left/right joystick direction to control smooth turning. We recommend leaving this untrained on the right hand to avoid accidental rotation movement while holding objects or activating Grab + A or B at the same time.

Image - 2024-10-24T104904.643.jpegImage Added

Right

Make the grab gesture with your thumb pulled towards the right side of your hand, towards your palm.

Tip

The gesture must be mirrored if you are training your right hand, so make the gesture for the left direction instead

Info

Many games use the right hand’s left/right joystick direction to control smooth turning. We recommend leaving this untrained on the right hand to avoid accidental rotation movement while holding objects or activating Grab + A or B at the same time.

Image - 2024-10-24T104914.714.jpegImage Added

Down

Make the grab gesture with your thumb curled in, with your knuckle arching up and the tip pressing towards middle of your middle finger. This direction is not used often as it is a fatiguing pose for the thumb.

Note

This gesture may interfere with Grab + A if trained on the same hand, so fine tuning both gestures is required.

grab.pngImage Added

Grab

Tune an additional grab pose. This represents no stick directions being activated and will refine the range of the other combos on this list.

Exporting a Model

Once you have trained a model for a hand:

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Changelog

Version

Publish Date (YYYY/MM/DD)

Add multi-button model training instructions for v0.9.0 of the StretchSense App for SteamVR

v1.1.0

2024/10/24

Add onboarding video and link to roadmap.

v1.0.1

2024/09/17

Initial version.

v1.0.0

2024/08/26