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Welcome to the spam filter. I’ve used the split-post method in the past, too.

It looks like gnome-screenshot does not handle background windows. But if you can leave focus on the sandbox window, it is possible to use a keyboard shortcut or a looping script for easy screenshots.

Igor Bubelov has an article about adapting gnome-screenshot for faster use. He describes setting up a shortcut to capture a screenshot and save it to a file with minimal user interaction.

It sounds like you don’t want the water animation at all. You can start the sandbox with SARndbox -rs 0 to disable rain/water.

Welcome to the forum.

I’ll assume you are using Linux Mint. The default screenshot app is started by the keyboard’s “Print Screen” key. Try it out and come back if you have questions.

What about the water simulation do you want to toggle? Do you want the water to disappear/appear, evaporate/drain away and able to be added as new rain, or pause the animation so the water is frozen in place?

Welcome to the forum.

It looks like Vrui 10.1 does not yet have a public release. As Kinect and SARndbox don’t have a new release since Vrui 10.1, I believe staying with Vrui 8.00-002 is the better choice. Luckily, at this time it is also the only choice.

Welcome to the forum.

Water control buttons and fluid texture changes (e.g. water, lave, sewage) are add-ons that will take some figuring. I have not seen anything for these features as comprehensive as Oliver’s base sandbox set-up videos.

For water buttons, you can check the options I list in External button for rain/drain.

Detailed plans for lava replacement of water are shared in Switch texture water to lava.

Oliver had a post on the old forum that uses an arcade USB encoder to send standard keyboard keys when the “arcade” buttons are pressed. He includes instructions for configuring the sandbox to use the buttons.

The Wayback Machine has his post for “USB Button Solution”, but I cannot include the URL.

Also, there are USB keyboards with one, two, five, etc. buttons. This way, the only sandbox setup is to assign tools (drain/rain) in the configuration file. I do not know how the output values are assigned to the keys, but I suspect it requires Windows for the initial setup.

Another example is Liudr’s AR Sandbox controller. He gives instructions for building flood and drain buttons using an Arduino microcontroller.

https://liudr.wordpress.com/2017/12/29/augmented-reality-sandbox-control-using-arduino-feather/

The first idea, and immediately workable, is to use xdotool. With xdotool:

1- move the mouse to a spring source
2- press the local water key
3- wait some time
4- release the key

Repeat this in a loop (in a script) with several spring sources.

As an example, here are xdotool commands to add water at three locations, each for a tenth of a second. (This assumes the ‘r’ key has been assigned to “Manage Local Water” in SARndbox.)

search --name "^SARndbox$"
windowactivate %1
mousemove --window %1 --polar 0 200
keydown 'r'
sleep 0.1
keyup 'r'
mousemove --window %1 --polar 90 200
keydown 'r'
sleep 0.1
keyup 'r'
mousemove --window %1 --polar 270 200
keydown 'r'
sleep 0.1
keyup 'r'

If there is not enough water from each spring, increase the rain strength with the -rs argument or patch your SARndbox to add the rainStrength pipe command.

The BenQ MX631ST looks to have a native 4:3 aspect ratio, so that should be simpler. Otherwise, it appears to be the same as the MW632ST.

I would try to disable any image processing by the projector. In the projector menus, set the aspect ratio to “Real” and disable digital zoom by setting it to “1.0”.

One possible way to do this is to cut out a hand silohuette. Just as a trial, I once cut out a trace of my hand on cardboard and stood it over the sand with a short PVC pipe. It worked to make an artesian well on the sand.

We do not use the hand silohuette because part of the fun is the interactivity and group effort. Assign a student to make the rain hand shape. Rotate student helpers as arms become tired.

Another way is to use the “Manage Water Locally” tool. Place the mouse cursor where you want the rain/spring and press the assigned key to add water at that spot. I believe this could be automated with xdotool (for Xorg or the similar ydotool for Wayland) to place the mouse pointer and virtually press the “Manage Water Locally” hot key. I think it would be possible to assign a command key in SARndbox to run a script for a local water source. I have not tried this.