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Dear AR-Sandbox-Forum Community,
I’m interested in taking top-down screenshots of the Sandbox environment. I’ve explored the VRUI menu and noticed the “wiggle screenshot” (Key->Utility->Wiggle Screenshot), which is not exactly what I am looking for.
Furthermore, I was wondering if any experienced users could kindly share their knowledge about taking top-down screenshots, ideally from a standard view in the sandbox. It would be very handy if there’s a hotkey or a way to schedule periodic screenshots.
Any help or guidance on achieving this is greatly appreciated.
Additionally, I wonder what would be the simplest way to toggle the water simulation? (While the Sandbox is running)
Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.
Best regards,
BrunoWelcome 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?
Hello Sean!
Thank you for welcoming in the forum and for the quick reply:)
Yes, I am using the Linux Mint operating system.Thank you very much for helping me!
BrunoThe default screenshot tool works! But I would like to take screenshots or save the current view even tho the sandbox is running in a background window. I now found and think I could use.
Due to speed and quality, I would like to save the output of the vrui screen directly periodically or by pressing a button.
Water simulation:
I wish to toggle or disable the water simulation completely; so there is no water in the sandbox neither is it raining, thus the sandbox is using less computing power and not salving the flow equations.I am sorry to post the answers so separately – but I always get if posted as one:
ERROR: Your reply cannot be created at this time.Your reply cannot be created at this time.
Welcome to the spam filter. I’ve used the split-post method in the past, too.
It looks like
gnome-screenshotdoes 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-screenshotfor 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 0to disable rain/water.Thank you very much, Sean!
Priorly, I went through the starting command list and saw the rs description:
-rs <rain strength> "Sets the strength of global or local rainfall in cm/s"
And thus I was not thinking it would turn off all water simulation.Due to saving the output of the Sandbox – I will have to dive deeper, because I won’t be able to guarantee the focus on the sandbox window all the time. Maybe by adding some line of code in the sandbox source code itself.
I’m not sure you can get around giving focus to SARndbox during the screenshot unless you are capturing the entire screen. A whole-screen capture might require later cropping of the image, depending on your needs. Even the sandbox built-in screenshot tool will need focus on the sandbox window to receive a keyboard event to trigger the capture.
Oh, and I found the sandbox built-in screenshot tool. You can assign the
ScreenshotToolto a key in the SARndbox configuration and it will save files such asVruiScreenshot0001.png, etc. to the launch folder.Starting from the example SARndbox application configuration file in Step 15 and adding
screenshotKey Spaceto the line afterwindowFullscreen truewill bind the screenshot tool to the spacebar.Thank you very much – that works!
The only issue I now got is that while it’s doing a screenshot, the Tool Selection Menu pops up and is displayed in the saved image.I tried to use a different key (that is not used for the menu), for example the ctrl key, but then the sandbox won’t even start.
A workaround is having two displays, clicking on the sandbox to focus it and then moving the mouse to the second screen, thus not triggering the menu. Definitely not ideal.
Is there a way to disable the menu for the key set for taking the screenshot?
I am really grateful for your help, Sean!
I was lucky when I tested the spacebar: the menu was so slow that I never saw it and it did not show in the screenshots. “Yay” for old computers? But I can see the menu if I hold down the spacebar for a longer time.
It looks like the F2-F12 keys do not show the menu. Try any of these in place of
Space. But these keys may be assigned to something else outside of the sandbox. You can disable a key through the desktop shortcut GUI and enable it in the sandbox cfg file to use that key in the sandbox.You’re welcome. I like to see others using the AR Sandbox, too.
Path:
~/.config/Vrui-8.0/Applications/SARndbox.cfgLocated in a hidden folder can be viewed by pressing
Ctrl+Hin the file manager. (Or under view and check the Show Hidden Files Box)I changed as you proposed the
Spacekey to theF2key (Linux Mint 21.2 has no shortcut, that I noticed). Works flawlessly! 🙂section Window # Force the application's window to full-screen mode: windowFullscreen true screenshotKey F2 endsectionThank you very much, Sean!
You’re welcome, Bruno. And thank you for posting your working solution. Someone else may use your example for their own sandbox screenshots.
There’s no need to use an external screen capturing application, or even Vrui’s Screenshot tool (which is actually meant to take “photos” inside 3D VR environments).
Vrui has built-in screenshot capability. Simply press “LeftWin+PrintScreen” and it will exactly save the contents of the focused window as a PNG file in the current directory.
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