ConfocalVR FAQ

Collaboration: Most collaboration issues are caused by internet access problems. Make sure your computer is connected to a “public” or “open” internet connection. Remember that often internet connections are highly restricted and can prevent ConfocalVR from accessing the Collaboration Server.  You can tell if you have open access by clicking on ConfocalVR’s “Begin Collaboration” button. After a second or two, if your computer can reach the server, your hand controllers will change and two pointer sticks will appear out in front of the controller. If you see these pointers, ConfocalVR has connected to the Server. Note that this has to work on all of the computers being used in a collaboration. Next, make sure you are using exactly the same Room Name (like “DEMO”) on both computers.  You should now see both your own hands, and the head and hands of your collaborators. The audio feed should also be live, supporting bi-direction discussions. If you have audio trouble, make sure that your Windows audio device selection is set to your VR hardware device.

Image Share: While both computers don’t have to access the same shared directory, it is preferred because during a collaboration, if slider settings are changed and saved, those changes will be saved locally on each machine, and it is possible for the two copies to get out of sync. For instance if both researchers access their local copy of the image and make changes, or add new channels. When you then go to collaborate the two copies of ConfocalVR may be looking at different image and configuration data, and that will cause confusion and likely break the collaboration session. So you can have local copies of the image directory on both computers, but just be careful to make sure thay are in sync at the beginning of a collaboration. The general workflow is for one collaborator to create the image directory, maybe do some initial adjusting of the slider controls, and then saving them.  Then this first collaborator makes this directory available to the second collaborator, who downloads the folder to their local computer.  Both users then start the collaboration, both open their local copy of the image directory, and then proceed with the interactive viewing and discussion of the biology.