Eye Setup - Set the Camera and Content Window

The Eye Setup page is designed to be your go-to page when setting up all the technical elements for your installation (everything other than your experiential content). You can get to it by going to your installations tab and clicking "Edit Eye Setup" on the installation you'd like to edit.

Using the Eye Setup page, you can

1. Set the camera and content window details (this tutorial)

2. Clean the depth filtered image received from the eye (go to this tutorial)

Setting Your Camera and Content Window

In your Eye Setup page, you can set all of your Content Window's details and set the camera you're using. The window and camera-related settings are:

• Content Window Size and Position

• Which Camera Eye

• Relative Placement of Eye to Screen

• Eye Orientation

• Positioning the Dynamic Content

All of these settings are designed to be set once for every installation. Your experiences are designed to rescale to each installation's settings automatically. You can adjust your installation settings in your Zuzor Control Window on your installation computer, or through the online Eye Setup page. It may be easier to edit through online through the Eye Setup page if your computer is hard to access while looking at the display screen.

Setting Your Content Window

In the Display Setting section, you're able to set your Content Window's width and height. All of your experience's content will automatically resize to each installation's window's size and ratio. Note that this means that you can push the same experience to different installations (with different display ratios) and the Zuzor App will automatically reconfigure the experiences for each installation's unique Content Window parameters.

To prevent your mouse from ever obscuring the Content Window, you position the window by setting the "Position X" and "Position Y" parameters. Note that "Position X" set to 0 correlates to the left of your main display and "Position Y" set to 0 correlates to the top of your main display. If you're using multiple displays in your installation, you may need to adjust the numbering of the displays to properly stretch or position the Content Window across the multiple displays.

Content Window size and position sliders on Eye Setup

Content Window size and position sliders on the Control Window

Setting Your Camera Eye

As you set up your installation, you'll need to set which depth camera you're using. By default, it will be set to "Simulation" where you'll see a recording of someone moving as your depth input. We support multiple depth cameras such as the Microsoft Kinect, the Intel RealSense and the Orbbec Astra. If you would like to request that we support an additional depth camera, please send us a message. Each camera is unique; some work better indoors and some outdoors, some have better resolution, some are able to see deeper than others, and some have a wider field of view. When you change the camera mode, your Zuzor App will automatically restart and load that camera's drivers. Note that if your depth input appears to be blank, you may need to plug in the depth camera to a different USB port on the computer and restart the app.

Dropdown menu to change the depth camera selection

Relative Placement of the Eye to the Screen

Where you place the depth camera for the Eye depends on what area you'd like to activate and turn interactive as well as the overall environment restrictions. Generally, there are two main classes of installation: upright and top-down. An upright installation display is one set up in front of the user, whereas a top-down installation has the display mounted flat above or below the user. If you're activating a display on a wall, in an upright installation, you can put the Eye above the display, below the display or across from the display. Whereas if you're activating a floor projection in a top-down installation, you'll want to place it above looking down. These are only generic recommendations, but you can place the Eye wherever is best for your experiential design.

Upright installation with the Eye opposite to the screen

Top-down installation with the Eye above

You can adjust for your Eye's placement, whether that means flipping the feed horizontally (if it's set up across from the display), flipping it vertically (if the Eye is mounted upside down from the ceiling), or both. On the Control Window, you can use the "Flip Horizontal" and "Flip Vertical" buttons. On the Eye Setup page, you can set this in the Eye Placement section:

Eye placement buttons on Control Window

Eye Placement section in the Eye Setup page

Let's go over some scenarios to get a better idea of setup options and their implications. Here you can see that the conference stage is activated with a Kinect at the very downstage of the stage. Alternately, you could place the eye upstage, looking center stage. Some considerations on where to place the Eye is where you can place the computer and how far you can extend the depth camera's USB.

You can slightly see the Kinect in the center downstage of the stage

Here you can see an LED wall with an Intel RealSense mounted at the top. Notice that this means that those standing near the LED wall are picked up at the bottom of the depth view. This is often the case with installations that have the Eye significantly above eye level. Depending on the distance you expect users to be from the display, this may be fine. If you're deciding whether to place the Eye above or below the display, note that placing the Eye above and angling it slightly down will cause a lot of the floor to be picked up in the depth view which may add noise and limit how deep you can set the Eye to look.

You can see the RealSense camera mounted at the top center of the LED wall

In this immersive setup, you have the Eye set up across from screen. So the Eye for the screen on the left, with a Matrix effect, is mounted up high on the right; and the Eye for the screen on the right, with a Motion effect, is mounted up high on the left.

The depth cameras are mounted right next to the white projectors that are visible. These are four installations - one for each wall/floor

In this top-down floor activation, you have the Eye set up directly above the center of the projection area to create an experience where the area right under the user is interactive.

The depth camera is mounted directly above the projection area

In this top-down activation, you can see the depth camera is mounted further back from the activated area. This perspective allows the visitors experiencing the activation to see their image further forward rather than directly below themselves.

Here you can slightly see the Orbbec set up above and behind the kids

Eye Orientation

Depending on your installation environment, you may want to set up your Eye vertically instead of horizontally (the default). When you switch to a vertical orientation, the Zuzor app will automatically restart and rotate the depth input by 90 degrees. Once it's rotated, you can use the Eye Placement options to adjust it further.

Horizontal Orientation (left) / Vertical Orientation (right)

Orientation control on the Eye Setup page

For a horizontal screen, the horizontal orientation captures more width. This allows more of the space in front of the display to be activated.

Here the Orbbec is mounted horizontally above the display

For a tall vertical screen, the vertical orientation would be a better fit and is often more concealable in the environment.

Here the Kinect is mounted vertically to the right of the projected area

Positioning the Dynamic Content

In Zuzor, you have static content and dynamic content. The static content is content you set through the Layer effect, like the background and foreground layer. This static content is automatically reconfigured based on the Content Window's width and height (so it also adapts from installation to installation if the window sizes are different). The dynamic content is content that is created live from the depth camera eye. So the Eye's position relative to the screen and the user's positioning affects the way the dynamic content is rendered in real-time. If a person stands 5 ft away from the Eye and then 8 ft away from the Eye, the dynamic content the person generates when 8 ft away may be smaller. To compensate for this, you can set the Eye's Zoom on the Eye set up to enlarge the dynamic content. To properly position the dynamic within the Content Window, you use X-offset and Y-offset.

Zoom / X-offset / Y-offset on Eye Setup Page

Zoom control on the Control Window

You can use Zoom to increase the size of the dynamic content if the dynamic content does not cover your Content Window from top-to-bottom or left-to-right you (or is generally smaller than you want it to be). Note that the value of Zoom depends on the Content Window's size, so the larger the window size, the higher the value of zoom you will need. You can see an example below:

Zoom: 1.6

Zoom: 2.1

To move the dynamic up-down and left-right, you can use Y-offset and X-offset, respectively. You may need this if your Eye is not centered with your display or if you want to focus and activate a specific area.

Zoom: 1.6 / X-offset: 0.3 / Y-offset:0.1

Note that Zuzor will generate dynamic content for everything detected in the interactive area even if it is not visible in the Content Window. For example, if you position the dynamic content to the left, then the leftmost part of the Eye's depth view will generate dynamic content that will not be visible on the content window. To reduce unnecessary computing resources and prevent dynamic content on the Content Window from being affected by it, you may want to crop that area out of the depth filtered.

We're here to help

Now you have a basic idea of how to set up your Eye for any installation! Be fearless and experiment to get comfortable with it. We're always here to help. Send us a message through the chat icon on the right, email us or call us for any assistance. If you'd like to make sure we're reachable during a specific time you're setting up, email us and we'll make sure to accommodate your needs.