Valve has launched 3D documents to help humans build mods and accessories for its new Index digital reality headset. The gaming business enterprise published high- and occasional-resolution fashions — together with different documentation — on GitHub beneath a Creative Commons license. Anybody can download and use the documents to layout their very own creations, however they could’t sell something without getting clearance from Valve first.
The Index headset, which began shipping final week, is a excessive-stop VR machine primarily based on Valve’s SteamVR platform. Valve designed the Index to attraction to modders, including a USB port for them in a small compartment referred to as the Frunk or “the front trunk.” Now, the business enterprise is offering some extra element approximately how this tinkering ought to work, including notes on wherein the Index’s sensors are placed so humans can attach extra hardware without negative monitoring exceptional.
You can locate computer-aided design (CAD) fashions of the Lighthouse base stations, the headset itself, and the motion controllers formerly called “Knuckles.” Valve has additionally launched a few examples of simple accessories. The “booster” grip, for instance, can assist a few customers’ arms rest greater effortlessly at the controller stock. You can also layout your very own padded face masks to update the one that’s covered with the headset.
Valve has launched those styles of documents before. It made the Steam Controller’s CAD files available in 2016, urging buyers to personalize the PC gamepad. Results blanketed custom beauty mods and snap-on joysticks to update the idiosyncratic trackpads — some thing you may also 3D-print for the Vive SteamVR headset.
VR headset modding isn’t new both. The Razer-sponsored, open-source OSVR task turned into even aimed at helping developers test hardware and software program with a reasonably-priced VR headset. That headset changed into essentially a development kit, although, even as the $999 Index is a complete-fledged (albeit niche) patron product. So non-professional designers would possibly want to mod their headsets like they would a gaming PC — despite the fact that it’s simply some thing beauty, like making a custom front plate for the headset.
