How to recieve input from HTC Vive tracker into Unity?

Question

I am attatching an HTC Vive tracker to a real life object to use that object in game. The tracker is found in the game itself and the movement and rotation are updated perfectly fine. But getting the input to work is the problem here. The Tracker its pins are connected correctly and the input can be seen working in the Input Debugger in the SteamVR Input Binding Tool.

I have tried to find any help on the internet but everything seems to be outdated. The controller themselves do work with the custom input function I have added but the tracker refuses to work. There are no errors at all. The code simply calls a shoot function to shoot a bullet out of a gun. The input is recieved by the controller, both of them, but the tracker which has the exact same settings as the controllers doesn't seem to work.

    [SerializeField] private GunScript gunScript;
    [SerializeField] private SteamVR_Action_Boolean input;

    void Update()
    {
        if (input.stateDown)
        {
            gunScript.Shoot(gunScript.ShotTransform.rotation);
        }
    }

The current output does shoot the gun when using the trigger which is set in the Input Binding Tool when using a normal controller, but when pressing the trigger attatched to the tracker nothing happens, no errors either.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 12 '19 at 17:44


// on start
var allDevices = new List<InputDevice>();
InputDevices.GetDevices(allDevices);
InputDevice tracker = allDevices.FirstOrDefault(d => d.role == InputDeviceRole.HardwareTracker);

// on update
tracker.TryGetFeatureValue(CommonUsages.devicePosition, out var pos);        

tracker.TryGetFeatureValue(CommonUsages.deviceRotation, out var rot);

// NOTE!!! pos and rot are in world position so you have to translate it to floor

derHugo · Answer 2 · 2019-03-27T13:05:31.047

SteamVR_Action_Boolean.stateDown is a shortcut to SteamVR_Input_Sources.Any

but as you can see in SteamVR_Input_Sources there is no entry for trackers at all so also Any will not get a tracker input.

There are a ton of tutorials for how to get controller input but I also couldn't find anything about getting button input for Vive Trackers. Apparently this is not intended ...

It makes sense though since the button is also the Trackers connection/power button ... it would probably not be a good idea to make the User press that button in order to trigger some actions.

In their HTC_Vive_Tracker Guidelines they point to

If you encounter problems in enabling VIVETracker(2018)on Unityor Unreal, refer to the following links:

For Unity 3D developers:

Downloadlink for the ViveInputUtility package: AssetStore or GitHub

Vive Input Utility source code repository:https://github.com/ViveSoftware/ViveInputUtility-Unity

Maybe there is something helpfull there though it seems this is also more for controllers etc. not for getting the Tracker's button input.

How to recieve input from HTC Vive tracker into Unity?

2 Answers2