Create a 1:1 replica of your VR workspace in under an hour with Unity.

I created a surprisingly precise reproduction of my physical VR development space in under an hour without any special equipment. You can too — here’s how.

How it looks

You can add as much or as little detail as you’d like. I prefer a more basic look.

Perspective is off slightly in this animation, but you get the idea.

Why bother?

1. It’s a lot easier to gauge scale and distance when designing if you have an accurate reference you are familiar with.
2. Turning around to look at your room space every time you want to work with an object is annoying. This allows you to easily place items you are working on directly in front of you — no swiveling required!
3. If your space is less than ideal for room scale (like mine), it will help you worry less about hitting your monitor or tripping over objects.

Here’s how

The technique is dead simple. There’s a tiny script to trace your space with a Vive controller. Then you put objects in place - lining them up with the traced lines. That’s it.

A short video walkthrough of the process.

To recreate your own space:

1. Download this Unity project
2. After you’ve downloaded the project, open it up by going to assets>mainScene. It will have my space, but you can just delete that.
3. Alright, now play the scene with your Vive connected. Trace the edges of your entire space with the back of either controller - hold the trigger to lay tracing dots.
4. Copy the dots, stop your scene, then paste the dots back in.
5. Use the dots as guides to create objects!

If you would like to export your project as a .obj, go to file->export->Wavefront OBJ. Thanks to this plugin.

Cheers!

I’m Austin. I work as a VR user experience designer. I am having a blast exploring virtual reality from the design perspective, and I’m excited to share what I’m finding.

Check out some of my work.

Stay tuned for more.