Weekly Dev Update #229

Butterfly News Continued

Aura has designed and printed the first version of our USB cradle that will be shipped as part of each Butterfly Dongle pack. While its only the first iteration, its already close to production ready, and may only need a few minor tweaks or cosmetic adjustments before its ready to have its very own (extremely expensive) mould made for it. Pics below

In related news, we have received samples of both the USB-A-to-C cable and USB-A-to-C adaptor we plan to stock with our Butterfly Dongle kit. We wanted to ditch the basic plastic ones we have historically used in favour of premium, braided, cables. We are very happy with these ones, so expect them or something very similar in the finished package.

And last but not least, after the small fix to our straps I mentioned in our last update, we are finally ready to place a bulk-order. Additionally we will be ordering all the itty bitty little screws used to hold each tracker together in bulk, meaning two of the final pieces will be locked in and ready for assembly. Additionally, we are ordering an auto-loading screwdriver to test out if it can make assembly smoother. This thing looks like a torture device, but it automatically feeds the insanely small screws we use into the end, so the assembly person can just push it down and press a button. Very cool stuff, pic below.

As usual, if you are interested in pre-ordering Butterfly Trackers, or just want to learn more, head over to: https://slimevr.dev/smol

Ecosystem News

A triple update was just launched the other day, with the Server app, Driver, and Installer all launching new versions into the wild. These have been in open testing for a few weeks now. Here is a list of the most notable changes:

Server:

• Reverted reset logic to pre-18.1 logic. Should now act like older servers
• smol (nRF) trackers running TDMA firmware can see packet loss. This will be added to other trackers, including Wi-Fi slimes
• Feet reset keybinding (for binding to controller)
• Various other small changes, tweaks, and fixes Driver:
• No more 'Chest binding' popup when launching steamvr
• Added tracker Velocity values for Natural locomotion support
• Various other small fixes and changes Installer:
• Fixed the installer running slimevr as admin after installing resulting in it not being usable in VR until restarted
• Fixed a few copy, unzipping, and user state errors

Rapid Roundup

Ready yourself for a bunch of SlimeVR news bits to bite on:

• Summer has been busy with their new Butterfly Trackers, creating what I can only describe as the nerdiest magic wand I've ever seen. Its used to collect paired data from the attached Vive tracker in hopes to improve the quality of our fusion algorithm. Not stopping there, he's also working on magnetometer bias calculations to aid in checking user movement and investigating how gravity maths can better optimised in our fusion. Pic below
• MOCAPers and VTubers rejoice, as we are going through our BVH and VMC/OSC protocols to fix longstanding issues and polish our implementations to make them much more user friendly, such as BVH rest pose and T-pose injection being added soon to make animation retargeting much easier. See: https://discord.com/channels/817184208525983775/1475504963810754652

That's it for this week. Thank you for reading to the end, hope you all have a lovely week and weekend. See you space slimethings~! <3