HoloLive

USER GUIDE
Version 1.7
Before you get started….
Get acquainted with your Web Portal

What is this? ​The Web Portal will be the central hub for your account. You can edit certain
information for your model files, share model files, download the latest plugins, and access all of
our training tutorials.

Accessing the Web PortalHow can I access the web-app?

Directly go to the web portal by going to app.visuallive.com or go to the main website,

visuallive.com, and choose Login at the top right of the screen.You can either go to
https://app.visuallive.com/users​ or go to our website (​https://www.visuallive.com/​) and select the
log-in button at the top of the screen.

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Sharing Individual Model FilesHow do I share a model file?

First make sure that the person you are trying to share the model with has a VisualLive account
(trial or paid).

In the Model Files tab, find the model that you wish to share with someone and select the button
“Share” on the far right.

Enter their user account name (this option is case-sensitive) and they will have the model sent
to their account.

Note:​ The model will be available within the applications even if the model is not visible in the
shared account’s Web Portal.

Why would I share a model file?​ If you are working in VisualLive with co-workers, there is no
need to have each individual push the same model. The Share feature allows you to quickly
view the same models on your different accounts (although the shared model cannot be edited
on the accounts it was shared to).

Training and TutorialsHow do I access the training and tutorials?

Underneath the “User Guide” tab, you will have access to these User Guides as well as playlists
of our tutorial videos. Each playlist will be separated based on your needs.

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Prepare Environment

Why? ​Before using HoloLive, you may need to set up your space/field first to place the 3D
model accurately. Not every job site is going to be the most optimal or have all the requirements
needed to use HoloLive effectively.

Travel through your environment first​: ​While online, moving through the environment with the
HoloLens on will allow you to gather your scan-mesh before the model is placed. If this is not
done, the hardware will continue to update while the software is trying to run (causing model
drifting).

HoloLens 1 Gestures

What are gestures? ​Gestures are motions you have to do with your hands in order to activate
certain commands on the HoloLens. These gestures are universal on the HoloLens (meaning
they work with any application on the HoloLens).

Airtap

What is it? ​Airtap is the replacement for ‘clicking’ or ‘selecting’ things on your screen. Since the
HoloLens does not have a mouse.

How?

HoloLens 2 Gestures

What are gestures? ​Gestures are motions you have to do with your hands in order to activate
certain commands on the HoloLens. These gestures are universal on the HoloLens (meaning
they work with any application).

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Note​: Gestures can be done with the right or left hand. Make sure that your hands are in view of the
cameras.

Airtap

What is it? ​Airtap is the replacement for ‘clicking’ or ‘selecting’ things on your screen. Since the
HoloLens does not have a mouse.

How?

Select Buttons

What is it? ​Use your hands to select or press buttons.

How?

Move/Summon Main Menu

What is it? ​Raise your wrist toward the HoloLens 2’s cameras and both the Microsoft Start
Menu icon and the HoloLive Menu icon will appear. Select the icon for the menu you want to
open with your other hand.

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How?

Keep in mind....

Hand Rays

For the HoloLens 2, when you hold your pointer fingers up, there will be a ray coming off of it. If
you hold both of your hands up, there will be two rays on screen.

This allows the HoloLens 2 to be used with your right or left hand.

The ray itself lets the user know that they can ‘Airtap’ on buttons and the ray will disappear
whenever your hand gets close to a menu/buttons. If you need to select an item from further
away so you can move

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Main HoloLive Interface
This interface is what will always be directly available to you while in HoloLive.

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Getting Started
Downloading HoloLive
● On the HoloLens, open the ‘Microsoft Store’ app
● In the search bar at the top right, search for ‘HoloLive’
● In the list of results for apps, select ‘HoloLive’
● From the HoloLive app page, Select ‘Get’
● If prompted, sign in to your Microsoft account or chooses ‘No, thanks’
● HoloLive will being to download, but it may take a few minutes for the installation to
complete, depending on your internet speed

Note: When updating the HoloLive app from the Microsoft Store page, it may indicate that
HoloLive is already installed, and you may need to select the ‘...’ icon and then ‘Update’ to
install the latest version of HoloLive.

Opening HoloLive

Once HoloLive is downloaded from the Windows Store on your HoloLens, open the Windows
Start menu, choose the ‘All Apps’ option, and find ‘HoloLive’. If desired, you can tap and hold
the HoloLive icon and choose the option to pin HoloLive so that you can get to the app faster
next time by loading it from your pinned apps in the Windows Start menu. Tap on the application
icon and the app should open.

Different ways to login when in-app

Typing in account information

Use the keyboard pop up to enter your username and password. Username is your account
email in all lowercase.

Scanning account QR code

When you sign into Account Settings on the VisualLive plugin, there is a QR code that you can
scan to sign into your account.

Profiles

How to use it?

Type in your username and password to sign in. Select ‘Remember Me’ if you would like to save
your profile to the device.

Offline Mode: ​You can enter offline mode to load the app when you are not connected to WiFi.

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How long is Offline Mode available?
You can stay in offline mode for up to 48 hours of runtime. After that you must sign in while
connected to WiFi to authenticate your account.

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Visualizing Models
1. Load the Model

Load Menu ​The Load Menu is the main menu for loading models. You will be able to view all of
the models that you have access to by scrolling through your list of models.

How?
● Select ‘cloud’ or ‘synced’ to open the desired list of models
● Choose the model that you want to view
● Press ‘Load’
● Wait for the model to load all the way to 100%
● Select ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when ‘clickable model objects’ popup appears (pg. 7)

2. Placing Model
Different options for placing your model will be available depending on what was pushed with
your model in Revit and Navisworks.

How?

● Marker Scan - Scan your VL Marker and that model will be placed with that as your starting point

● Marker Airtap- Allows you to airtap the location of a horizontal VL Marker and set the orientation
to quickly load a model

● Two-Point Placement - Choose the location of your two points that you set up in the VL Plugin

● Manual Placement - You will be placed in the center of your model. Make adjustments to align it

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Visualization Features
Measure

What is it? ​Measure all your surroundings and the distances to model elements. You can
change the unit of measurement as well as measuring mode from length to area.

How to use it?

● Select ‘Start Measuring’
● Airtap where you want to start your measurement
● Select your second point to complete the measurement
● Press ‘Stop Measuring’ to allow you to airtap other buttons

What else can I do with it? ​Measurement allows you to change units and have options to
better accurately measure models and your environment.

Unit​:​ This tool allows you to change your unit between feet and inches, decimal feet, or meters.
If you already have some distances measured out, changing the units will update them in real
time.

Snap:​ This tool can toggle the ability to line up your measuring tool exactly to sharp
edges/corners on the models or the environment. If you are trying to snap to the environment
(not a model), this tool will attempt to snap to the vertices of the scan mesh (which may not be
exactly​ accurate).

Perpendicular:​This tool will create another measure line that is perpendicular to the surface
that is already selected or to the surface that the cursor is currently hovering over.

Remove All: ​This button will remove all the previously measured distances that you have
currently visible on your HoloLens.

Worksets

What is it? ​The Worksets tool allows for you to load and unload each model or group of
models.

How to use it?

● Select the ​Worksets​ button. A pop-up with the appropriate worksets will appear in front of you
● Airtap or Select the desired layer to toggle visibility
● Then choose ‘Apply’ at the bottom right corner

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How do I set up my Worksets? ​You will need to read the ‘​VL Plugin User Guide​’ in order to
learn how to push layers. It is a slightly different set up depending on if you are using
Navisworks or Revit.

Model Tools
Within Toolkit but opens its own menu inside HoloLive.

Scale

What is it? ​Allows you to size a model smaller than 1:1 scale.

How to use it? ​Airtap on either the + or - button to scale your model.

Note: Scaling your model will cause deviation in real-world position visualization.

Move

What is it? ​The Move tool allows you to change the position of your model along the X, Y, and
Z axis in increments.

How to use it?

● Airtap the + or - to choose the appropriate increment
● Select the + or - for any axis direction you want to move it along

What else can I do with it?

Drag and Rotate Gizmo: ​On the far right of the Move tool is an option called ‘Drag Gizmo’. This
will turn on the ability to move and drag the model using arrows instead of the numerical
movement from before.

On the left of the menu, there are icons for Move and Rotate. This will toggle the ability to move
and rotate the model using the gizmo.

The Move icon will turn on automatically but selecting the Rotate icon will change the gizmo into
3 circles. The gizmo can now be used to rotate the model as well. I

​Unit:​ To the right of the toolbar there is a plus and minus button next to the word ​Increment​.

This will change the unit increment by .001, .01, .1, 1, 10...etc meters.

Reset:​ ​The Reset button resets all changes to the increments (changes the units back to .001,
and changes the X, Y, and Z to 0) as well as resets the model back to its original location.

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Two-Point Alignment

What is it? ​Choose two points on your model to match up with two points in reality in order to
align the whole model accurately even when you stray far from the original placement point (VL
Marker or Two-Point Placement).

Before you get started:

With HoloLive, you will need to enable ​Clickable Model Objects​. Airtap the alignment button
again to force the Clickable Model Objects menu to pop-up. Select ‘Yes’ in order to continue.

How to use it?

● Select ‘Start Alignment’
● Choose two points on the virtual model
● Choose two points that the virtual model is supposed to line up with

What else can I do with it?

Snap:​ This tool enables the snapping feature. This will make the selection tool snap to the
corners of your model. However, it also snaps to the corners of the triangles that make up the
scan mesh. If this becomes a problem, you can always select the snap button again to un-select
the snapping feature, and manually place the selection tool.

Selecting​:​ Select the corners of a model (one at a time). Once the model is selected the models
will become transparent and the HoloLens will scan the room again. Then select two points for
the model to align with.

X-ray

What is this? ​X-ray mode turns the whole model’s opacity down. This means that the model is
easier to see through when walking in an environment without having to choose each model
piece.

How to use it?

● Airtap on the left or right arrows to move the opacity along
● Choose desired transparency

Lock Position
Also known as AnchorLock

What is this? ​A tool to anchor or lock the position of a model to where you place it.

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When does this appear? ​The button in the Model Tools will allow anchors to be available
immediately, but it occurs when using any Model Tools other than X-ray. Alternatively, after any
adjustments (move, scale, etc.) are made, a popup will suggest to place a lock.

How to use it?

● After moving, scaling, or aligning models, the Anchor Lock pop-up appears
● Decide where the model needs to be locked
● Place AnchorLock and confirm placement

How does it work?

AnchorLocks allow a model’s information to be saved to one location. Whether it is the model’s
placement or scale. Within 10 feet (depending on how far multiple AnchorLock’s are from each
other) an AnchorLock will be activated and prioritized over any other AnchorLock. This means
that multiple locks can be placed down at any areas where the model starts drifting, allowing the
model to stay as accurate as possible.

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Collaboration Features
These features need a Pro paid license in order to access them
Make sure to connect your account to a cloud service ​within the Plugin​ before using these features

Issue Capturing

What is it?​ Issue Capturing will let you take screenshots that you can upload to the cloud. Send
them to Google Drive or OneDrive for Business to bring them back into Navisworks as
viewpoints. Send them to BIM360 or ProCore as either an observation, RFI, or punch list.

How?
● Start Capturing - Turns camera on for use
● Capture - Take a picture on your device of the issue and upload to the server
● 5 Second Delay – There will be a five second delay before the picture is taken, so be
sure to turn to the issue and keep your HoloLens still
● Issue Report – Once the picture is taken, a menu will pop up asking you to save the
photo and send it to your connected Google Drive/Cloud Storage account.

What else can it do?

View Queue:​ If your menu does not show up after taking the picture, or if the image does not
load into your Google Drive then open the View Queue menu. This allows you to view any
images that are still loading and have not been sent out to your Google Drive/Cloud Storage yet.

Progress Tracking
This tool’s icon may say ‘Install’

What is it?​ Progress Tracking tracks model pieces that have been installed or not installed in
the real world.

How?
● Clickable Model Objects must be enabled. Airtap the alignment button to open the
Clickable Model Objects menu pop-up
● Start Tracking- Allows you to start selecting which parts of the model have been recently
installed at your site
● Generate Report - Pushes this tracking information to your cloud report as a
spreadsheet. Changes the visual information to now show what has been ‘previously
installed’

How to tell what has been installed?

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In the Progress Tracking menu, models will be color-coded:
● Installed​: These model pieces will be ​green
● Not Installed​: These model pieces will be ​orange

What else can it do?

Custom Status: ​It is possible to create a custom status other than ‘Installed’ and ‘Not Installed’
within the Progress Tracking tool. In order to create a custom status:
● Select ‘Create New’
● Enter a name and color for this new status
● Select ‘Create’

Now you can tap on model objects to label them as the new status.

Statistics​: It is possible to view different statistics of the model. Linear footage is automatically
tracked however, there is a drop down option for statistics. This will show any
properties/metadata that were pushed with the model.

For example; if there is a property named “Planks” and an object is marked with a numerical
value for that property, then Install Tracking will show the total value of installed “Planks”.

Pie Chart​: A Pie Chart is available within Progress Tracking to better represent the completed
installations of the model versus the not completed installations of the model. The Pie Chart will
also accurately show the percentage of a custom status that was created.

Total Installed​:​ This tells you how much of the total model is already installed based on the
number of model pieces that have been registered as installed.

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Tips and Tricks
Microsoft HoloLens 2

Hand Rays

For the HoloLens 2, when you hold your pointer fingers up, there will be a ray coming off of the
finger to aim where you can ‘Airtap’ buttons. If you hold both of your hands up, there will be two
rays on screen for each finger, however, this does not mean that you can select two things at
once.

The ray will disappear whenever your hand gets close to a menu so you can ‘Select’ the button
instead.

Menus

The menus can be dragged around from the top into any position that is needed. Pinch and hold
the edges of a menu and pull it in a direction to drag the menu. While pinching, you can also
turn your wrist facing toward or away from you to rotate the menus in the desired position.

Menus can also be locked into whatever position you move it to. You can either drag the menu
and then select the lock at the top right or lock the menu and then drag it into position. Locking
and then dragging menus prevents

Drag and Rotate Gesture

What is it? ​Pinch and hold the edges of a menu and pull it in a direction to drag the menu.
While pinching, you can also turn your wrist facing toward or away from you to rotate the menus
in the desired position.

Scanning Markers

What to keep in mind. ​We recommend that vertical VL Markers are used with the Microsoft
HoloLens 1 & 2 as cameras can only understand what is close to them. This means that you
usually need to get really close to horizontal VL Markers.

Depending on the lighting of the environment (if [environment] is heavily shadowed), the
HoloLens may need to be around 12 inches from the VL Marker for it to scan.

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Recommend Marker Methods

What to keep in mind. ​Our best practice for VL Markers on the HoloLens, is to place them
every 100 feet. This is to make it easier to load your models every time you enter a new ‘zone’.

Load models offline

How?
● Load app online first
● Choose a model on the Load Menu
● Select ‘Sync’ on the right side of the menu
● Wait for it to download
● In the top of the Load Menu, the Sync Folder now holds that model

What is it?
Allows models to be downloaded to the devices. Syncing models need internet connection to
first download models but allows the model to be loaded again without internet connection.

Synced models can save changes made but cannot upload any changes until the device has
access to wifi once again.

Overlay Reality

What is it?
The ability to view where the virtual model interacts with objects/walls in an environment.

How?
● Under Load and Sync buttons, choose the Overlay Reality button
● Based off the scan mesh that the HoloLens created, the model will then cut off when it interacts
with that mesh. Floors, walls, ceilings, objects will cut models based on those interactions

Quick-scan VL Marker to load model

How?
● Select the Scan QR icon at the top of the Load Menu.
● Scan the VL Marker.
● Confirm placement

What is it?
A quicker, easier way to load and place a model with one step

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Version Number
The version number will usually be available on the Log-in Screen.

Model Placement Options

Marker Scan

Scan the HoloLive marker which you have placed in reality.

● ​Selectthe “​Marker Scan​” icon.

● ​Focus on the marker for a few seconds, and a target pointing up will appear over
the marker as well as a voice saying, “Marker detected”.
● The target will change color depending on its placement accuracy after scanning.
● This means that the device has successfully detected the marker, and your
models should load in around you.

Marker Airtap

● Select the “Marker Airtap” icon.

● A small cylinder should appear where the ‘cursor’ is.
● Place the cylinder in the center point of the VL Marker, and then place the
second cylinder which determines the angle of the ‘marker’.
● The model will load in around you.

Two Point

● Select the “Two Point” icon

● A small cylinder should appear where the ‘cursor’ is
● Place the cylinder onto the first alignment point that coincides with the model’s
first alignment point
● Then Place the second point onto the second alignment point that coincides with
model’s second alignment point

Manual Adjustment

● Select the “​Manual Adjustment​” icon

● The model should be centered on your position
● Alignment tools will appear to move the model to its proper location

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Save Alignment

What is it? ​Changes the location of the virtual VL Marker in order to line it up with the physical
VL Marker.

How?
● Scan physical VL Marker in different location from where the virtual VL Marker is
● Confirm placement of virtual VL marker (adjust the model using the alignment tools)
● Scan the physical marker again. A new prompt should show up called ‘Save Alignment’
● Select the button ‘Save Alignment’ and the virtual marker will relocate to the physical marker’s position

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HoloLive Voice Commands
You do not need to be in the assigned menu to use the voice commands. Saying the voice
command will enable the tool automatically.

General Commands
● Menu – Brings the menu into view
● Yes – Select Yes in dialogue box
● No – Select No in dialogue box
● Okay – Select Okay in dialogue box

Capture Commands
● Start Capturing – Enables picture taking
● Stop Capturing – Disables picture taking
● Take Picture – Captures a picture and opens the issue form

Overlay Reality Commands

● Overlay Reality – Turns on the reality mesh
● Overlay Model – Turns off the reality mesh

Measurement Commands
● Start Measuring – Enables measure mode
● Stop Measuring – Disables measure mode
● Perpendicular – Turns on perpendicular lines
● Snap – Enables vertex snapping for measure node placement
● Feet and Inch – Change unit to feet and inch
● Decimal Feet – Change unit to decimal feet
● Metric – Change unit to metric system
● Place – Places a measure node
● Remove All – Removes all measure lines that were placed

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