In Arkio, you can experience your scene as a scale model or teleport inside the model at human scales using the teleport tool or your controller grips

God scale lock

In mixed reality and god scale (scales higher than 1:2), you might want to align and lock your model to a physical surface in your environment, like a table or the floor. This can be done by pressing the lock button on the wristband of your non-dominant hand. If the model is locked, the lock icon will highlight. This scene will now remain in place on that surface and at that scale, and accidental model movement will be prevented by reducing the sensitivity of the controller grip buttons. 

When a scene is locked in mixed reality, a world anchor position is stored in the scene. The next time you open Arkio on your headsets, you can still find this model in this locked position. Any time you teleport back to god scale from human scale, the model is positioned in this location. You can remove your god scale lock by clicking the same lock icon again, and you can set a new default god scale position by activating the lock again.

Human scale lock

When you click (using the laser) or touch (using your index finger) the lock button in human scale (1:1) this will save a human scale lock in your model indicated by a green-colored disk visible in god scales (higher than 1:2). This disc indicates your current human scale position in the model and updates if you walk around so you can see where you currently are in human scale. You can teleport back inside this human-scale position and quickly jump between working in human and god scales to make adjustments to your model by laser or by hand.

When you work in human-scale mixed reality, Arkio automatically creates a new lock if you create new objects around you (e.g., adding furniture or a wall), so you can jump back to this position later. This might result in unwanted saved human-scale positions, but you can easily remove them using the delete tool.

You can save several human-scale locked positions in a model, and when hosting a meeting, you can share these locks with other colocated users. This enables interesting use cases, such as multiple mixed-reality designs in a single scene, and improved device-tracking accuracy in large-scale environments.

Break out the locked position

When you lock your scene's position in god or human scale, you can break out of this lock using your controller grip beyond a threshold. This will have the same effect as deselecting the lock icon on your wristband. Selecting the lock again will update the previous position to this new position. Great for making small adjustments when the model appears misaligned or when your device loses its tracking accuracy. 

You can also manually click the lock icon on your wristband to disable the lock in god or human scales, or teleport outside your locked position from human-scale. 

Deleting human-scale lock positions

If you saved human-scale locks in your model that are no longer needed, you can easily remove them using the delete tool from the main menu. Locks can also be shared with your devices from a host in a colocated meeting group. These shared locks can be used, deleted, and updated like normal locks.

If you have issues with your saved locks, you can remove all the previously saved locks from your current scene in the settings panel. This will clear all the teleport markers and also reset your god scale locked position.

Aligning your models

When loading 3D models from other software into mixed reality or designing on reality using Arkio's modelling tools, there are several ways to ensure your scenes are correctly aligned with the real world. Once scenes are aligned and locked at 1:1 human scale, your headset will retain this position even after a restart or when working offline. This lock position is saved in your Arkio scene and can also be shared with other Quest devices using a colocated meeting. 

Blending reality

The easiest way to align models with reality is to use boundaryless blending on a Quest headset, which blends the real world with your scene's geometry as you move. 

Look for a clear 3D reference in your scene that corresponds to a real-world reference. (e.g. a intersection of a floor with a column or wall) Teleport down to 1:1 human scale near this 3D reference to already align your scale and floor height. You now only need to pan and rotate the scene to its final position using your Quest controller grips while moving, comparing the model's position to the real world.

Once the position looks good, you can use the lock icon on your wristband to save your position. You are now locked, and a 1:1 human-scale teleport marker will show this position when zooming out.  You can always make minor adjustments to your lock's position by unlocking it, making a minor pan/rotation adjustment, and locking it again.

Passthrough geometry

You can also use objects painted with the passthrough material in Arkio to reveal, hide, and closely compare real-world to virtual geometry based on their depth in the scene. Arkio's mixed reality material allows you to see the reality on only part of your model, so you can also use it to show geometry behind walls, ceilings or other buildings. Once your 3D scene is aligned, you can lock the position on your wristband, and your mixed reality explorations can begin.

Geolocate using streetmaps

You can also geolocate large objects, such as entire buildings, between existing buildings. Using Arkio's map tool, you can first place the imported building on the map, then, on-site, you can teleport to your estimated location on the map. This should already put the building at the correct scale and approximate distance.

From there, it's easy to make a minor adjustment to the rotation and location of the scene using your Quest grip buttons, before applying the human scale lock from your wristband to save that position.

You can finish your scene by adding some passthrough shapes in Arkio of existing buildings that should obstruct the placed building on the map. You can always teleport back up to your god scale and teleport back to 1:1 scale to make adjustments with your laser/hand and inspect the results.

Geolocate using a custom site reference

If you have access to other 3D geolocated information in Rhino/Revit/Sketchup, you can also bring these 3D models of building outlines into Arkio and use them as alignment references. Once the building is in the correct position, you can paint this site reference with the passthrough material to blend your design into its context. KPF has been using this workflow to align some of its buildings in the London skyline. You can learn more about that on our YouTube channel

Manually align using Arkio's modelling tools

If your site lacks a reliable 3D reference, you can also estimate your building's distance and position by overtracing the sounding geometry directly in Arkio. Estimating distances from a single view can be challenging, but you can always walk between different viewpoints and adjust Arkio's volumes and your lock position if needed. You can see some examples of this approach on our social media channels.

Using a combination of imported models, passthrough materials, and Arkio shapes, you can blend a wide range of environments and objects. You can also use Arkio's rendering modes, such as X-ray mode and sections, to support a wide range of mixed reality and AR use cases for building design and on construction sites.