CtrlAltStudio: Oculus Rift configuration utility

Posted on November 11, 2013April 6, 2020 by Inara Pey

Dave Rowe (Strachan Ofarrel in SL) is responsible for developing the CtrlAltStudio viewer. Based on Firestorm, the viewer comes in two flavours, one encompassing a Stereoscopic 3D world view, and the other pioneering Oculus Rift support for both Second Life and OpenSim.

The Oculus Rift configuration utility (image: Dave Rowe)

I’ve been reporting on both viewers as they’ve been updated, and noticed that Dave recently posted some useful information for those with a pre-release Oculus Rift SDK version and who might be using his viewer.

In it, he provides an overview of the headset’s configuration utility which allows users to:

Measure your eye separation (inter pupillary distance or IPD, also referred to simply as pupillary distance)
Correctly calibrate the headset
Update the headset’s firmware.

If you have a headset, and have not used the configuration utility, Dave’s article makes worthwhile reading, covering as it does all three of the operations bulleted above.

In addition to covering these options, Dave points out that the latest version of the firmware (0.18) includes improvements to reduce orientation drift. So, if you have been using the utility to calibrate the headset, but are finding your orientation is drifting a lot, you may want to try updating your headset’s firmware.

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Published by Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology. View all posts by Inara Pey

5 thoughts on “CtrlAltStudio: Oculus Rift configuration utility”

Marcus Llewellyn says:

November 11, 2013 at 15:09

Huh. I can’t help but wonder what gender has to do with calibration.

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1. Inara Pey says:
  
  November 11, 2013 at 15:17
  
  To account for the variances between far range and short range distances that seem to naturally occur between men and women, perhaps?
  
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2. ctrlaltdavid says:
  
  November 11, 2013 at 19:03
  
  I had a look in the Rift code and the gender value is used to help better calculate the user’s eye height for the game’s POV cameras: evidently the distance from the top of the head (player height) to the eyes is different on average for males and females. It is up to each program using the Rift whether or not it uses this information from the configuration utility’s user profile.
  
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  1. Marcus Llewellyn says:
    
    November 12, 2013 at 06:19
    
    Thanks! That’s very illuminating. It is probably that sort of attention to detail that helps to prevent things like disorientation. I would never have guessed that on my own.
    
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  2. Inara Pey says:
    
    November 12, 2013 at 13:17
    
    Thanks for poking the code and finding out :).
    
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