VR Deck

Pimax passthrough and recenter

The Passthru key toggles Pimax Play's passthrough from the deck, once Pimax Play has learned its shortcut. Two kinds of recenter exist, and the overlay stays on the deck through both.

1. The Passthru key
2. Teach Pimax Play the shortcut
3. VST (lab) and the VST OFF badge
4. Recenter, kind one: Pimax's Reset View
5. Recenter, kind two: the VR Recenter key
6. Where the overlay shows

The Passthru key

The Home page's Passthru key is a Hotkey that sends ctrl+f22. F13 to F24 exist on no keyboard, so nothing else can fire it, and Pimax Play insists on a modifier in every shortcut, hence ctrl+f22 rather than a bare f22. Pimax Play has to learn that shortcut once, as its Toggle Passthrough shortcut. VR Deck never writes Pimax's files: Pimax Play records the shortcut itself, in its own window.

Teach Pimax Play the shortcut

1. In Pimax Play open Settings › Shortcut Settings › Toggle Passthrough.

2. In the Stream Deck app open the Setup key's inspector. Its Pimax Play row lists the shortcuts Pimax Play has recorded next to your deck keys, with a Teach button beside each deck shortcut.

3. Click Teach, then within 5 seconds click into Pimax Play's Toggle Passthrough field. The companion types the shortcut once, Pimax Play records it, and the list refreshes to show the recorded shortcut next to the deck key.

   Screenshot to addassets/img/vr-deck/shots/pimax-03-teach.png

4. Without Teach: focus the field in Pimax Play and press the deck key itself. That is the way for a key with a hold-to-confirm, which Teach does not list: click into the field and hold the deck key.

   Screenshot to addassets/img/vr-deck/shots/pimax-02-shortcut-settings.png

Cancel, closing the inspector or selecting another key stops the countdown. Shortcuts Pimax Play already has on file are marked already recorded.

VST (lab) and the VST OFF badge

Pimax Play's passthrough only works while its VST (lab) switch is on, and Pimax drops that switch on headset reconnects and app relaunches. VR Deck watches Pimax's settings for you:

• While VST is off, the Passthru key (any Hotkey key, or Toggle state, whose shortcut is the one Pimax recorded as Toggle Passthrough) is drawn dimmed with a VST OFF badge, on the deck and in the headset.
• Pressing it still sends the shortcut (harmless) but flashes an alert and logs why: Pimax VST (lab) is off: passthrough will not toggle; turn VST on in Pimax Play.
• The key returns to normal by itself when the switch comes back.
• VR Deck does not switch VST on for you: Pimax has no shortcut for it, and VR Deck never writes other programs' files. The one step is the switch in Pimax Play; the Setup key's Pimax row says so too.

Recenter, kind one: Pimax's Reset View

Pimax Play's reset view is a shortcut too. Add a Hotkey key on a free slot with a shortcut such as ctrl+f23 and teach it to Pimax Play's Reset View Center field the same way as the passthrough. It resets Pimax's own runtime and works whatever the game runs on.

In inside-out mode a Pimax reset re-zeroes the tracking itself, silently, without telling SteamVR. The companion notices every tracked pose jump by the same amount between two ticks and moves the saved overlay pose along with it, so the grid stays on the deck; the headset shows a short card, Recenter detected: deck overlay kept in place. Verified through five Pimax resets of 19° to 101°.

Recenter, kind two: the VR Recenter key

The VR Recenter key on the Home page is SteamVR's own reset of the seated zero pose (the dashboard's recenter; the default) or the standing zero pose (room setup's frame, which moves the room-scale origin), through the companion. It works for every headset and game that runs through SteamVR; games on another OpenXR runtime (PimaxXR, Oculus, VDXR) are not affected.

• A tick when SteamVR did it; an alert when it could not. SteamVR is not running is the expected error with SteamVR closed.
• While the companion is not connected the key dims with a NO VR badge and a press only alerts.
• A reset during a calibration is refused (calibration in progress): finish the three touches first.
• Hold-to-confirm is optional in the key's inspector.
• The overlay stays on the deck. New calibrations live in SteamVR's raw tracking frame, which this reset does not touch; a calibration stored in the standing or seated frame is moved along by exactly the amount the frame moved, and the card changes to Recentred: deck overlay kept in place.

Where the overlay shows

The overlay is drawn by SteamVR's compositor, so it appears in SteamVR Home, in every game running through SteamVR (OpenVR titles and OpenXR titles on the SteamVR runtime) and while the SteamVR dashboard is open. It is not available when another OpenXR runtime is active (PimaxXR, Oculus, VDXR): those have no overlay API. To see the deck in a game, run the game through SteamVR.