Working in Mixed Reality

With Arkio on the Meta Quest, you can use passthrough mode to mix realities. You can toggle passthrough mode on to see your Arkio worktable in your real surroundings.

Passthrough is black and white on Quest 1 and 2, while the Quest Pro and Quest 3 feature color passthrough to blend the real and virtual worlds. You can design, pan, and scale the model just like you usually do in VR mode. You can also lock the model's position in your physical environment using the toggle on the wristband. This will be your default model position when you teleport back to god scale. 

Toggle between Virtual and Mixed Reality

Arkio launches in Mixed Reality on Quest 3 and Quest Pro, as these devices provide a superior MR experience. Any time you are in Arkio at god/model scale (1:1000-1:2), you can toggle back to VR using the Passthrough toggle in the secondary bracelet. This will switch your default mode for that Arkio session to VR instead of MR when you teleport back to god scale from the ground.

When you scale yourself beyond the 1:10 scale, the green table surface will disappear. This allows you to work on your interiors and architecture scale projects and prevents the ground surface from blocking your real surroundings.

If you scale yourself beyond 1:2 in Arkio (or teleport down on the ground) you will enter human scale mode which switches you back to VR for full immersion in your design.

In human scale mode, you can still toggle to Mixed Reality to map your real environment with Arkio geometry or place furniture in your surroundings at human scale. Switching your default mode in human scale will always put you in MR mode when you teleport in your design until you restart Arkio, but you can always switch back to default VR mode using the same toggle.

Boundaryless mode

Arkio is a boundaryless application on the Meta Quest that allows you to move around freely without worrying about your boundaries. When walking around, we blend the real world to prevent users from bumping into things. Arkio fades back to the virtual geometry when you stand still.

The threshold at which this “transparent” effect kicks in depends on the speed at which you move and your active VR/MR mode. In VR mode at human scale (eye icon on your wristband), when you move more than 0,2 meters a second, we blend in reality. If you move slower than that, you stay in full VR.

If you are in MR/passthrough mode (can be toggled in Human Scale from the eye icon on your wristband), the movement sensitivity increases, allowing a higher movement threshold of 0.4 meters per second before we blend in reality.

If you wish to avoid this "transparency" effect while moving around in Arkio, you can walk more slowly or switch to mixed reality/passthrough mode to prevent the effect from kicking in. Completely disabling this effect is currently not possible, as this is a feature to comply with Meta’s safety requirements.

Aligning and locking the scene to your environment

When you use the lock button on your wristband, you lock the scene's position to your current environment. This allows you to place the model on a surface, such as a table, at a god scale. Additionally, you can use it to align and lock your scene to your environment in human scale. These locks are visible in the Arkio scene as green cylinders that update to your human-scale position as you walk around. You can teleport inside these human-scale locks in your scene and learn more about locks on this page.

Colocated Mixed Reality

Mixing realities

You can use the passthrough toggle on your wristband to show your real environment in both god and human scale. Things can get confusing when mixing realities, but you can always turn off passthrough mode and jump back to god scale to get a better view of your project. The key to mixing realities is using the passthrough material and other materials to blend your real and virtual worlds.

I can bring existing objects from my home into my virtual world by making a passthrough shape around them. If faces around this shape are painted with other materials, I can also erase parts of this real object by editing or removing the passthrough shape. 

Passthrough material

Other materials mask the real world, while the passthrough material reveals the real world at that location. You can use passthrough material to create magic portals between your real and virtual worlds. Portals can be created by importing your room or modeling walls, floors, or ceilings with passthrough material and turning passthrough mode off. 

This will hide the white outlines but will still show the reality of the shapes painted with the passthrough material. Cutting a hole into these passthrough shapes will now show the virtual Arkio scene and sky on the other side of the wall. I can model something behind walls, place props, and import and align 3D models. You can also make virtual portals by modeling elements with the passthrough material anywhere in your scene. You can learn more about these workflows on this page