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View the SteamVR open early access roadmap here

Required Materials

Software

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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

      

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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3. Repeat for the right hand.

4. When calibration is complete for both hands, the training and button testing columns will be visible:

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Mounting the Trackers

Use the universal mount and position the trackers to mirror one another as pictured. Other 3D printed mounts that put the trackers in a similar position and orientation will also work.

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Left Hand	Right Hand

2. 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.

   

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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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2. 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.

   

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 timeonly 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. 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 Controller Model for Interaction.

   Image RemovedImage Added

Tuning a Previously Trained Model

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.

   Image RemovedImage Added

4. Repeat for the right-hand.

Training a

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Controller Model for

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Analog Joystick

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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

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Name

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Description

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Idle

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

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Up

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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.

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Left

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

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Right

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

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There are several variations of the base gesture which activates the joystick. While making this gesture the primary digit of your hand (e.g. Thumb) will be used to drive the analog joystick axis. You need to move this digit to follow the direction of the small circle within the joystick during training.

The analog joystick supports the following:

• Full scalar value outputs for the left and/or right joystick X/Y axis to SteamVR.

• Configurable deadzone radius

  Image Added

• A delete button to clear the joystick model so it can be re-trained from scratch without deleting your previously trained button gestures.

Analog Joystick Training Process

Info
You can press and hold the Delete icon at any time to clear your joystick and start training again. Image Added

Pose	Name	Description
Image Added	Joystick Centered	Make the horns gesture, then move your thumb straight up. This represents the centered position of joystick and will start the joystick activation when this pose is reached. Going out of this base pose will snap the joystick back to center inside the dead zone. Click Capture to set this as the activation pose for the joystick.
Image Added	Training #1	Make the horns gesture 🤘 with your thumb curled in, with your knuckle arching up and the tip pressing towards

middle

and touching the surface of your curled middle finger.

This direction is not used often as it is a fatiguing pose for the thumb.Image 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:

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Pose

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Name

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Description

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Idle

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

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Grip

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

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RT

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

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Menu

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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.

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A Button / Primary Button

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

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B Button / Secondary Button

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

2. Repeat the Idle pose to compensate for any outlying data introduced with the other buttons. You may need to repeat these gestures until all gestures can be performed without the button activation state flickering on/off or between buttons or idle.

Exporting a Model

Once you have trained a model for a hand:

1. Click Export Model

2. For each hand you will be prompted to select a location on disk to save the current model for that hand as a DAT file.

3. Give the model a descriptive name (e.g Left Hand D-Pad Trigger) to help remember what buttons the model is trained on when loading it next time.

5. Running SteamVR Games

1. Start SteamVR and wait for the SteamVR status window to appear. The two StretchSense logos will appear when the StretchSense Driver Add-On has loaded:

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2. Open the Companion App.

3. Perform the calibration for both hands.

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4. Click Load Model to load a compatible model from disk for your game and the correct settings will be automatically applied.

5. Check the buttons on screen highlight white when making the appropriate gesture.

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6. Turn on your Tundra or Vive Trackers.

7. Check the gloves are detected in the SteamVR status window, indicated by two filled StretchSense logos.

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8. Start your SteamVR compatible game.

9. Check your in-game hands track correctly.

Tip
If you need to restart SteamVR during your play session, click the Reset Connections button in the SteamVR App. Re-connections to Hand Engine are automatic if you need to restart Hand Engine for any reason (make sure to select the gloves in Hand Engine again when you restart). Image Removed

Info
Validate SteamVR is receiving emulated controller button presses by going to SteamVR → Settings → Controllers → Test Controller Image Removed

Changelog

Version

Publish Date (YYYY/MM/DD)

Use the circumference of your curled finger to represent the range of the joystick. Click the Capture button beside the joystick entry in the training list. This will train the joystick model’s relationship between your thumb pose and the current joystick position and allows for small movements to control the joystick. You may not be able to hit the circle exactly but try and follow it as closely as possible. Keeping your thumb bent, follow the small circle with your thumb as it moves around the outside of the joystick, aiming the tip of your thumb in the direction that matches the small circle’s position. Follow the joystick as it spirals in towards the center of the joystick.
Image Added	Training #2	Repeat the above training a second time, making sure that you follow the circle as closely as possible.
Image Added	Training #3	Repeat the above training a third time, making sure that you follow the circle as closely as possible. Test out the joystick and make sure you can get a good range of motion and repeat additional trainings if necessary.

Training a Controller Model for Digital Joystick (Legacy)

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 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.

Pose	Name	Description
Image Added	Idle	Make the horns gesture, then move your thumb straight up. This represents the centered position of joystick.
Image Added	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.
Image Added	Left	Make the horns 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 and instead turn your physical body.
Image Added	Right	Make the horns 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 and instead turn your physical body.
Image 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.
Image 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.

1. Train the below interaction gestures:

Pose	Name	Description
Image 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.
Image Added	Grab	Make a finger gun pose with your thumb pointing upwards and your middle, ring and little fingers curled.
Image Added	LT/RT	Point gesture with thumb pointing upwards. Fully curl in your index finger, as if you were pulling a real trigger.
Image 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.
Image 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.
Image 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.
Image Added	Pinky Touch (optional)	Touch the tip of your ring finger to your thumb. When making this gesture in the future, the hand skeleton animation data will be forced into the pictured pose. In VRChat this pose is used on the left hand to toggle the built in VRChat gesture recognition on/off. On the right hand this pose will summon the world space VRChat radial action menu, and this menu can be navigated using laser pointer controls from either hand.

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.

Pose	Name	Description
Image 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 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 have previously trained grab + joystick this 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 + joystick gesture if you also want to press A and/or B at the same time.
Image 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 have previously trained grab + joystick this 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 + joystick gesture if you also want to press A and/or B at the same time.
Image 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 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. Note If you have previously trained a joystick model’s activation pose, this may intersect with this gesture, causing accidental activations. You will need to fine tune the directional controls to avoid this. Alternately don’t train joystick on that hand if you also want to press A + B at the same time.

Grab / Trigger for Smooth Locomotion

Some games may require you to grab and/or activate held objects while moving with smooth locomotion (e.g. Bonelab and Boneworks). Train these gestures:

Pose	Name	Description
Image Added	Trigger + Joystick	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. Your thumb can be used to move the joystick; bend your thumb and repeatedly train this gesture to ensure the joystick is activating in various locations on the joystick. You may need to go back and train Grab + Trigger if you have also trained this gesture. Note Avoid squeezing your index finger too hard as it will make it harder to repeat the gesture.
Image Added	Grab + Joystick	Make a finger gun pose with your thumb pointing upwards and your middle, ring and little fingers curled. Bend your thumb and repeatedly train this gesture to ensure the joystick is activating in various locations on the joystick. Image Added

Optional Multi-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.

Pose	Name	Description
Image 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.
Image 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 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 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 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.
Image 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:

1. Click Export Model

2. For each hand you will be prompted to select a location on disk to save the current model for that hand as a DAT file.

3. Give the model a descriptive name (e.g Left Hand D-Pad Trigger) to help remember what buttons the model is trained on when loading it next time.

5. Running SteamVR Games

1. Start SteamVR and wait for the SteamVR status window to appear. The two StretchSense logos will appear when the StretchSense Driver Add-On has loaded:

   Image Added

2. Open the Companion App.

3. Perform the calibration for both hands.

   Image Added

4. Click Load Model to load a compatible model from disk for your game and the correct settings will be automatically applied.

5. Check the buttons on screen highlight white when making the appropriate gesture.

   Image Added

6. Turn on your Tundra or Vive Trackers.

7. Check the gloves are detected in the SteamVR status window, indicated by two filled StretchSense logos.

   Image Added

8. Start your SteamVR compatible game.

9. Check your in-game hands track correctly.

Tip
If you need to restart SteamVR during your play session, click the Reset Connections button in the SteamVR App. Re-connections to Hand Engine are automatic if you need to restart Hand Engine for any reason (make sure to select the gloves in Hand Engine again when you restart). Image Added

Info
Validate SteamVR is receiving emulated controller button presses by going to SteamVR → Settings → Controllers → Test Controller Image Added