This section provides general FAQs. Further questions you can also post in the Unifeye Design Forum.

Purchasing/Licensing

Why do I not receive my license key after purchasing Unifeye Design using bank/wire transfer?

When you select bank/wire transfer as payment method in the Unifeye Design online shop you will have to transer the money manually. Such bank/wire transfers usually take a few days for completion. Once the payment was received you will get your license information via email.

How can I activate Unifeye Design?

You can find a detailed description of the license activation in this article.

The license activation does not work. What shall I do?

Please not the following:

• A license can only be activated once on a single PC
• You need an Internet connection for automatic license activation
• Firewalls and Proxy servers may prevent a successful license activation

If you encounter problems during license activation, please e-mail your license request file to license@metaio.com. Details can be found here.

I can't activate my license. It does not appear in the license drop-down list in the activation wizard.

Unifeye Design using a licensing mechanism called CodeMeterAct. It needs a running Windows service called "CodeMeter" service. Sometimes this service does not start automatically (but pretends being running) after the installation of Unifeye Design. You can start it manually:

1. Open the CodeMeter Control Center using the Windows start menu: CodeMeter -> CodeMeter Control Center.
2. Now stop and start the CodeMeter service manually using the menu entries in the "Process" menu.

Now start Unifeye Design again and try the activation again (or start the Unifeye Design License Activation wizard manually using the according Windows start menu entry).

What if I want to use the Software on a different computer?

The license is bound to the PC where you first install Unifeye Design. If you need to migrate the license at some point you need to send a request to sales@metaio.com.

Can I also get a version with a Hardware dongle?

A hardware dongle can be requested via sales@metaio.com.

How can I activate Unifeye Desing if I have a Hardware Dongle?

• Download the driver for the WiBuKey (Dongle) from here and install it:

  • 32Bit: http://www.wibu.de/files/wk6_00a/WkRuntime32.exe

  • 64Bit: http://www.wibu.de/files/wk6_00a/WkRuntime.exe

• Then plug in the WiBuKey .

• Wait untill the Dongle has been accepted by the system.

• Then rightclick onto the desktop and select New->WIBU Control File

• Send this file to sales@metaio.com.

• We will return you a Control File with activated license. Save it to your desktop and doubleclick it, while the dongle is attached to the PC.

The dongle is not recognized as new hardware. What do I need to do?

If the dongle-driver isn't installed automatically you can download the driver from this site:

http://www.wibu.com/download_user.php

Scroll down to the WibuKey-part and download the WibuKey Runtime-Kit for your OS

Hardware

What are the minimum hardware/system requirements?

The actual requirements vary with the size of the 3D-models and the required frame rates, so consider these specs as a basic configuration.

Windows XP (SP 3) / Windows Vista / Windows 7

Dual core processor with at least 1.7 GHZ

3D graphics card with at least 256 MB (512 MB recommended)

1 Gbyte of RAM (2-3 GB recommended)

USB webcam with current Windows drivers

What cameras are supported?

In Unifeye Design you can use all cameras supporting Windows DirectShow (most current webcams that are connected via USB/!FireWire do support this). Also DirectShow compatible framegrabber-cards can be used as well as most via FireWire connectedDV-cams.

Can I use HD cameras?

There is a special version which is optimized for HD cameras, which can be requested via sales@metaio.com

Camera undistortion

When using a camera calibration I have black pixels at the top and bottom

Every camera delivers a picture that is more or less distorted. Due to the nature of the camera-lens even perfect vertical or horizontal lines seem to be slightly curved outwards. A camera calibration corrects this error and straightens those lines, by curving the camera-picture inwards. As a result some black areas are visible where no image information is left.

For more information on camera calibration have a look at this article.

When using camera calibration the framerate drops

Rendering

What render modes does the system support?

Unifeye Design supports two different render modes : DirectX and OpenGL
To switch between those two options open View -> Renderer in the main-toolbar.

My camera keeps freezing when using DirectX -Mode.

This error seems to occur on certain ATI-graphicscards. We are currently investigating the cause for this, but in the meantime you can simply switch to the OpenGL-mode.

Can I create/use special-shaded models?

Unifeye Design uses the BSContact-renderer, which supports in addition to standard texture-shaded models also fx-files.
Example-fx-files can be found here or can be created with the NvidiaComposer.

Note that fx-shader are only supported under DirectX.

What is the maximum possible polygon count?

The maximum number of polygons that all models within one scene may have is strongly dependent on your hardware.

The better your graphics card is the more polygons can be rendered simultaneously, wherelse the storage size determins how many polygons the whole scene may have.

However on an average uptodate consumer PC you should be able to work with between 100.000 to 300.000 polygons.

What model formats does the system support?

Unifeye Design can load VRML 2.0 (also known as VRML97) files. Standard VRML-files have the file-ending .wrl. However Unifeye Design can also open compressed VRML-files with the ending .wrz.

How can I use movie/video planes?

Export a plane with an image-texture assigned from your 3DCC-Tool. Open the VRML-File with a text-editor and search for the image-texture.

Then replace the lines

texture ImageTexture
 {
  url "image.jpg"
 }

with

texture StereoMovieTexture
 {
  url "tex/movie1.wmv"
  loop TRUE
 }

There's also a workflow-example using movie-textures.

I am using a movie/video plane but it freezes during playback?

If you are using a movie/video plane the CODEC used inside the video file must be available on the target PC. You should use commonly available CODECs like WMV3 inside a WMV container file. For example WVC1 can cause playback problems/freezes if not installed on the target PC (see e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1).

Can I use movies with an alpha-channel?

No, that's not possible in Unifeye Design. It is however possible in the Unifeye Viewer, which relies on Shockwave and therefore can use Flash-Videos with alpha-channel.

http://www.metaio.com/products/viewer/

http://docs.metaio.com/bin/view/Main/UnifeyeViewerFAQs

How can I mirror/flip the output image?

After you selected a camera as image source there appear some extra buttons in the lower left corner of Unifeye Design.
A click on the wrench-symbol opens a window revealing the camera's properties. In the tab Advanced there's the option to mirror the image horizontal and/or vertical.

Tracking

How do I check if my image is suited for markerless tracking?

To verify if your marker is suited for markerless tracking use the “Quality check”-button in the Configuration tool for planar markerless tracking (That's the red-blue-green-bar-symbol).

If the rating is too low you might want to use a different image or alter the one you already use. Another possibility is to define a smaller area (but not too small) inside the pattern and letting the system search only for that region. This usally also increases chances of a correct tracking.

Click “create Patch” or “edit Patch” (the two buttons next ro the quality check-button) and then click “Edit regions”(only possible if an image has been defined in advance). Then draw a rectangular region into your pattern that you’d like to limit the tracking to.

Then check the tracking-quality again. Either with the quality-check or directly in Unifeye Design.

Which resolution should my tracking reference have in order to get the best possible tracking performance (in terms of speed)?

image resolution = A x B (i.e. 400 x 200 pixels)

to get a good tracking performance, choose a reference template size verifying:

1. (A x B) such that min(A,B) = pow(2,n)*25, where n is a positive integer. “Good sizes” would be: (A x B) where min(A,B) is equal to 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200,... or slightly above, i.e. (A x B) where min(A,B) is equal to 26, 52, 105, 1606,...Avoid using sizes in-between or sizes that are slightly below these values. “Bad sizes” would then be: (A x B) where min(A,B) is, for example, equal to: 47, 98, 300, 1500, …
2. For optimal performance, additionally, choose min(A,B) close to max(A,B). Example of optimal sizes: (100 x 100), (200 x 200), … Condition 2. only makes sense when condition 1. is fulfilled.

VRML

What are WRZ-files and how can I edit them?

WRZ is simply a zip-compressed WRL(VRML)-file. All example models in <UnifeyeDesignInstallationFolder>/examples/models/= are such zip-compressed files.
If you want to edit one of those VRML-files you just have to rename it to filename.zip instead of filename.wrz, afterwards you can uncompress it with any Zip-Tool, e.g. WinZip. The resulting file can then be opened and edited in a text-editor just as standard VRML-files.

The resulting file can then be opened with a text-editor.

Can I have multiple animations in one VRML-file and how can I access them?

All VRML-animations are driven by TimeSensors. If you want to change an animation open the VRML in a text-editor and search for TimeSensor. An animation will play within Unifeye only if the TimeSensor contains the tag loop=TRUE then. So if a VRML-file contains multiple TimeSensors you can switch between the different animations by changing loop=TRUE into loop=FALSE

DEF TimeSource TimeSensor
{
 cycleInterval 3
 loop FALSE
}
DEF TimeSource2 TimeSensor
{
 cycleInterval 6
 loop TRUE
}

In this example all animations driven by TimeSource won't play. Only animations affected by TimeSource2 are visible in Unifeye.

My animation doesn't start from the beginning. How can I change this?

It is possible to start the animation the first time the marker is visible. To achieve this you have to do the following:

Find the TimeSensor-Node and verify that the animation is set to loop TRUE. Then paste the following lines below the "TimeSensor, while you have to enter the name of your TimeSensor instead of "NameOfTimeSensor"

DEF vs VisibilitySensor{
 size 1 1 1
 }
ROUTE vs.enterTime TO NameOfTimeSensor.startTime

How can I start a movietexture as soon as the marker is visible and stop it when the marker is no longer visible?

Find the Texture-Node, which defines the StereoMovieTexture and verify that it's set to loop TRUE and that the texture has a defined name.

texture DEF myMovieTex StereoMovieTexture{
url "C:\movie.wmv"
}

Then paste the following lines at the end of your VRML-file, while you have to enter the name of your StereoMovieTexture instead of "myMovieTex"

DEF vs VisibilitySensor{
 size 1 1 1
 }
ROUTE vs.exitTime TO myMovieTex.stopTime 
ROUTE vs.enterTime TO myMovieTex.startTime </p>

How can I add sound to my VRML-model?

You can add a Sound-node to your VRML-model, which can even be sensitive to distance and orientation towards the camera.

Here’s an example of how this spatial sound works:

Sound{
  minBack 600
  minFront 800
  maxBack 1200
  maxFront 1600
  intensity 0.5
  direction 0 0 1
  source AudioClip{
    description "someName"
    loop TRUE
    url "mySound.wav"
  }
  spatialize TRUE
}

Workflow Engine

I created a very big workflow and the system chrashed!

There is a limitation of the number of actions that can be used in a workflow. If you build a workflow that consists of around 100-120 or more actions the workflow engine might all of a sudden break down. Please try to keep the amount of actions used in one workflow below that threshold.

How can I create my own actions? How can I extend the functionality of the Workflow Engine?

More info about creating your own Ufa-Actions can be found here.

Can I play back a workflow on a system not having Unifeye Design?

Workflows can only be played back on systems that have either Unifeye Design or the Unifeye SDK installed.

Miscellaneous

I created an AR-Scenario using Unifeye Design and want to run/install this scenario onto further machines. How can I do this?

1. Save your AR-Scenario – including 3D and tracking configuration – using either the SCEF (scene file) or as a workflow
2. Setup additional PCs (windows / webcam drivers etc.) and install the unifeye design software.
   • Please note that you require a valid unifeye design software license activated on each PC.
   • You can purchase additional licenses and activate your PC directly through our Web-Shop here: https://secure.avangate.com/order/product.php?PRODS=3658328&QTY=1&ORDERSTYLE=nLWs5ZXfhH4%25253D&SRC=www.metaio.com&LANG=en

3. Copy all scenario / workflow files next to the Unifeye Design folder and run the scenario/workflow.

I got told to send a DxDiag-File to metaio. How can I create such a file?

1. Click on the Windows-Start-Button in the lower left corner of your screen
2. Select “Run”.
3. Type in “dxdiag” and click on OK.
4. In the launched application click on “Run DxDiag”
5. Save the created txt-file to disk and send it to metaio.

Error during initializing tracking system: could not load XML configuration file. Failed to instantiate DOMDocument40 class.

This error is most likely caused by a unsuccessful installation of MSXML 4.0 on the system. To fix this, please follow these steps:

• Run the MSXML 4.0 installer again from "C:\Program Files\metaio\Unifeye Design Demo2.0.1\external\msxml.msi"
• If it is already installed (the installer will tell), "remove' the existing installation and run the installer again

-- SupportMetaio - 2010-02-22