Author: <Nathan Kassai> Email: kassan@unlv.nevada.edu
Date: Last modified on <01/19/2023>
Keywords: <Virtual Reality, Tutorial, Step-by-Step>

Time to complete - 15 minutes

By the end of this tutorial, you will have fully integrated your hands into the Virtual Reality Environment!

Here is the final product after this tutorial:

Before starting this tutorial, the author assumes you either:

• Understand how to install/upload packages into Unity
• Followed the previous Unity Crash Course tutorial which goes over everything mentioned above to prepare you for this tutorial

In previous tutorials, we have created 3D Virtual Environments utilizing the game engine Unity, wrote scripts to create unique behaviors between game objects, and even rendered our VR Environment to a Virtual Reality Headset using the Varjo XR3. Finally, it's time to utilize one more piece of tech to map your hands to a virtual hand model to enable interactions in our Unity environment. To do this, we will utilize the Quantum Meta-Gloves. This tutorial's goal is to teach incoming lab members how to set up the Quantum MetaGloves with Manus Core, and how to get the Virtual Reality gloves working in Unity. The rest of this tutorial is presented as follows:

• Hardware
• Manus Core Installation and Setup
• Connecting Manus Core to Unity
• Final Words

To complete this tutorial, you'll need the following items (shown in the image below from left to right)

• A - Quantum Meta Gloves Pair (1)
• B - Angled USB - C to USB - A Cables (2)
• C - Manus MetaGloves Dongle (1)
• D - Manus Glove Batteries (2)
• E - Finger caps (5 per hand, varying in size)

This section will allow you to install Manus Core onto your computer and begin the Manus Glove Pairing process.

Step 1 Go to the following link and log into our DASL Manus account (note - for security reasons, the login information will not be included in this tutorial. Login information will be found near VR Station)

https://resources.manus-meta.com/downloads

Step 2 Scroll down until you see Manus Core 2.0 Web Installer as seen below, and hit download.

Once downloaded, run the executable and proceed through the installation process. Additionally, download the Unity Plugin for Manus Core which is located on the same page (found at the bottom). We will need this for later.

Step 3 Once the installation process has been completed, run Manus Core (if not already running). You should see the following screen:

Now, connect the Manus MetaGlove Dongle to your PC. Once it has connected and has been successfully recognized, Manus Core should update to the following screen showing the Quantum Dongle connected to the top right:

Step 4 Next, perform the following:

1. Connect one battery to each Quantum MetaGlove (once the battery is inserted, push the green lock bar all the way inward toward the center of the glove.) This ensures the battery stays in place during operation.
2. Connect the USB-C to USB-A cable to the Glove and PC respectively.
3. Turn on the glove by moving the switch to the on position.
4. Wait for the glove to be recognized by Manus Core

Once everything has connected, Manus Core will ask you to pair the glove to your account, and ask that you go through a calibration procedure. Once you've completed this procedure, you should see the following:

Continue the pairing/calibration process with the other glove.

In order to get the Manus Gloves connected to Unity, we will require the following package:

• Unity Plugin for Manus Core

You should have already downloaded this package from Step 2 of Manus Core Installation and Setup, if not, go back to that step and download the Unity Plugin for Manus Core package. Before continuing, make sure to extract the contents of that package!

You may either create a new Unity 2020 project to test the Quantum MetaGloves, or you may use the project you made in the previous tutorial. Regardless of what you choose, open that project up, and let's begin importing the package into the project.

Once the project has loaded, press Assets, then scroll down to Import Package, and select Custom Package. Go to the location of the installed package and press open. After it begins loading the package into the project, it will ask you if you would like to import; press import, and wait until it has been completed.

Once finished, go to the following path in your Unity directory (Assets > Manus > unity-plugin > Prefabs > ManusHands) and drag the ManusHand_L prefab into the Hierarchy (for now, we will check the left hand. Feel free to drag both hands into the Hierarchy and play with both).

Now, before you hit play, check the following in order:

1. Is Manus Core running?
2. Is/are the glove(s) that you would like to use in Unity turned on?
3. Is the hand tracking working in Manus Core?
4. Is the Manus Dongle connected to the PC?

If you have answered yes to all of the above questions, then the glove(s) are ready to be used in Unity! Press play and watch the Virtual Model come to life!

Note - While you may be attempting to move the hand around the VR space, the position and orientation of the hand will not update. You must use an HTC Vive Tracker to connect to the top of the glove and configure it in Unity (will not be included in this tutorial. To learn about getting the HTC Vive trackers working in Unity, follow the previous tutorial.)

This tutorial's objective was to integrate the Quantum MetaGloves into Unity! The next tutorial covers interactions with the Quantum MetaGloves and the VR environment.

For questions, clarifications, etc, Email: kassan2@unlv.nevada.edu