VRPositionState.orientation

This is an experimental technology
Because this technology's specification has not stabilized, check the compatibility table for usage in various browsers. Also note that the syntax and behavior of an experimental technology is subject to change in future versions of browsers as the specification changes.

The orientation read-only property of the VRPositionState interface returns the current orientation of the sensor relative to the head mounted display, as a quarternion value.

Note: This is currently represented by a DOMPoint value, but will be updated when DOMQuarternion is implemented.

Syntax

var myOrientation = VRPositionState.orientation;

Value

A DOMPoint.

Examples

The following example is taken from our positionsensorvrdevice demo, which uses the WebVR API to update the view of a simple 2D canvas scene on each frame of a requestAnimationFrame loop.

function setView() {
  var posState = gPositionSensor.getState();

    ...
  
  if(posState.hasOrientation) {
    orientPara.textContent = 'Orientation: x' + roundToTwo(posState.orientation.x) + " y"
                                + roundToTwo(posState.orientation.y) + " z"
                                + roundToTwo(posState.orientation.z);
    xOrient = posState.orientation.x * WIDTH;
    yOrient = -posState.orientation.y * HEIGHT * 2;
    zOrient = posState.orientation.z * 180;

  }

    ...
}

Here we are grabbing a VRPositionState object using PositionSensorVRDevice.getState() and storing it in posState. We then check to make sure that orientation info is present and valid in the current frame using VRPositionState.hasOrientation (this returns null if, for example the head mounted display is turned off or not pointing at the position sensor, which would cause an error.)

We then output the x, y and z orientation values in the UI for informational purposes, and use those values to update the xOrient, yOrient, and zOrient variables, which are used to update the scene rendering on each frame (check out the drawImages() function in the source code to see how they are used.)

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WebVR The definition of 'position' in that specification.	Editor's Draft	Initial definition

Feature	Chrome	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari (WebKit)
Basic support	(Yes)^[1]	39 (39)^[2]	No support	No support	No support

Feature	Android	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	Firefox OS (Gecko)	IE Phone	Opera Mobile	Safari Mobile	Chrome for Android
Basic support	No support	39.0 (39)^[2] 44.0 (44)^[3]	No support	No support	No support	No support	No support

[1] The support in Chrome is currently experimental. To find information on Chrome's WebVR implementation status including supporting builds, check out Bringing VR to Chrome by Brandon Jones.
[2] The support for this feature is currently disabled by default in Firefox. To enable WebVR support in Firefox Nightly/Developer Edition, you can go to about:config and enable the dom.vr* prefs. A better option however is to install the WebVR Enabler Add-on, which does this for you and sets up other necessary parts of the environment.
[3] The dom.vr* prefs are enabled by default at this point, in Nightly/Aurora editions.

VRPositionState.orientation

Syntax

Value

Examples

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

Document Tags and Contributors