How to Load VR Horizontal Strip on Oculus App

[JEarly]

The documents for 5.1b say that for playback of node or tour in Gear VR you should set output to horizontal strip and then load into Oculus app.

Is there anymore tutorial or info on exactly how to "load into Oculus app?"

I know how to view my standalone 360x180 pano images using the Oculus 360 Photos App but I would like to get Tour with gaze input functionality working on the Gear VR (already works in cardboard). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
John

[Hopki]

Hi John,
Just use the VR strip output and out in in to the GearVR.
Regards,
Hopki

[JEarly]

Thanks for your help, but I'm sorry I am not following your directions.

[Hopki]

HI JEarly,
You can not use the Pano2VR player in the Gear VR, if you have an equirectangular image, this can get distorted, so if you want pixel perfect images Pano2VR can convert the equirec to the 1 x 6 VR strip.
Once you have the strip you would then transfer it to your phone. Then in the Gear VR menu you access the folder and view the panorama.
Regards,
Hopki

[JEarly]

Thank you Hopki. But I guess what I am looking for is specific direction on: "Then in the Gear VR menu you access the folder and view the panorama." Are you referring to an app in the Oculus Home Store to view?

Also: Which folder should it be transferred to on the Android device to view it?

Thanks again for your continued help.

[360Texas]

We did not use an Oculus for viewing locally on a cell phone

If you have not yet read this you might consider clicking on

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10985&p=44792&hilit ... ble#p44792
copy and print copy of the smartphone/USB cable /thumb drive so you will know what you are looking to purchase. These are common OTG cable devices. Think US $5.00 or less.

Concept workflow:
Generate your pano2vr project /output folder contents

Purchase an On the Go (OTG) type USB gender changer Male -> Female USB cable. Smartphone <- goes into Cable[Male cable end <-> Female cable end ] USB Thumbdrive. Similar to the picture in the forum link above.

plug in your flash drive to your computer. Use your desktop computer files and folders explorer to create on your flash drive a folder called [your folder name choice] /mypano1. The thumbdrive acts as a new harddrive.
Copy Pano2vr /output folder contents to your folder called /mypano1 on your FLASH drive

Remove your flash drive from your computer USB port.

On your smart phone - internet search for, download and install current version of FIREFOX browser.

Start Firefox and browse to your flash drive and /mypano1 and just click on the yourproject.html

Firefox should now display your VR project.

I did this over a year ago so times change. Could be there now is an APP that will display your panorama locally on your smartphone. BUT IT DEPENDS on your default browser. At one point I know that CHROME and Samsung INTERNET browser would not let you look back and run a local yourproject.html . It would display a VR view but it was either a white or black screen. That is where FIREFOX does allow looking and running a VRtour on an external thumbdrive.

On your smartphone... use Firefox and browse to your project. Start your project by clicking on yourproject.html

Insert your smartphone in your Gear 360 and view your vrtour.

[JEarly]

Thank you 360Texas for your reply. Will check it out.

I would really like to hear how the Oculus app can be used to view Pano2VR-output horizontal strip, as mentioned by Pano2VR 5.1b docs.

[360Texas]

Ok...

This process involves simply:
What______ |_ What we use
smart phone | Samsung Galaxy s7 curve with Android O/S 6.0.1
HTML5 compliant browser| Samsung INTERNET browser

You need your Pano2vr -Horizontal tile .jpg image /Project uploaded to your website. In the meantime you will need a Pano2vr project to look at.

Here is our project file structure . We used a THETA S spherical image [html 5 multi-res image set (Manual level tile size 336, with 3 levels 1344, 672, 336)

On our 360Texas.com server here is the files and folder structure:

360Texas - Project structure

server.JPG (51.54 KiB) Viewed 4774 times

Note that our server side .html file ICON is flagged for CHROME because our desktop computer default is the Chrome browser. The Samsung INTERNET browser is used with the GEAR VR HMD (head mounted device)

Your smart phone - It is best you create a bookmark link to an existing web page. It is difficult to tap or eye blink in the url while wearing the HMD.
open Samsung INTERNET browser [purple Icon with globe icon] INTERNET . Oculus internally uses the Samsung INTERNET browser.
tap in the URL bar this path
http://www.360texas.com/gallery/elissa/elissa.html
after going to this page ADD a bookmark. Our Page is called 'Welcome on Board' the Elissa Sailing Ship home port in Galveston Texas

Make sure your smartphone is fully charged 100%
Insert your smart phone into the Gear VR HMD
Let Oculus start up.
When the main large movie LEFT - CENTER - RIGHT column theatre like tile menu are displayed - select the Samsung INTERNET browser.
This takes you to the internet - by selecting BOOKMARKS UPPER RIGHT COLUMN you can select the previously created Pano2vr project bookmark called Elissa or 360Texas.com or Welcome on Board.

First thing you will notice is that the panorama is displayed on a FLAT graphical rectangle MOVIE screen even though the project was created as FULL SCREEN option. This is an Oculus thing and I have not found a way to jump to a full monitor screen size display.

At the moment only in the THUMBDRIVE technique your project can you see the panorama on your smart phone.

When I created the Elissa project (December 2015) I did not add 'gyroscope' option. This means it will auto rotate by itself. And you can Gear VR mouse pad swipe the mouse star on the right side HMD to manually rotate over to and TAP one of large RED HOTSPOTS to move about in the 3 panorama tour.

[Hopki]

Hi,
1) Open Pano2VR 5 with Equirectangular image
2) Click convert input, select type Horizontal Strip (VR), set JPG and convert. Then close Pano2VR.
3) Plug your Galaxy phone into your computer and launch your software, I have Android File Transfer for Mac.
4) Find the Oculus folder and open it, drag and drop your VR strip in the 360Photos folder, if you don't have one create it.

1.jpg (66.02 KiB) Viewed 4765 times

5) Plug your phone into the Gear360, look for 360 Photos in the main menu.
6) Then click on My Photos and open, you should see the folder 360Photos folder, open this to see the strip.
Regards,
Hopki

[360Texas]

Thank you Martin.

I had forgotten about that technique. Yes, IT REALLY DOES WORK - full screen too.

Note: This is a simple approach that does require Pano2vr for image conversion.
It really isn't necessary to have tool bars, gyroscope enabled or hotspots. Only a single .jpg will work.
We took our single spherical image using the Theta - S.