Documentation

Oculus Quest

Oculus Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3 and Quest Pro are supported and give almost the same capabilities as VR headsets connected directly to a PC ("tethered" to a PC). They work without needing a beefy VR-ready PC. They can work in purely standalone mode to view cloud models, or they can work together with a PC or Mac running SketchUp.

Note that the "Oculus Link" cable offers a different way to use the Quest: tethered to the PC. In this mode, the rendering is done on the PC like with other tethered solutions. These solutions are described in the VR Sketch for PC page and do not require any of the installations below. Like all other tethered solutions, this does not work on Mac.

Please be aware that the Quest itself has troubles rendering very large models, because it is not as powerful as the tethered VR solutions. See Rendering of large models below.

Note: do not subscribe to the Oculus Public Test Channel. Your Quest would be updated to a more recent version of the firmware than the one we can test with: we did not manage to subscribe ourselves so far. It would mean that you could get new bugs related to a firmware version that we cannot run.

Installation on Quest 2, 3 and Quest Pro

Reminder: if you have a PC with a good graphics card and only want to run VR Sketch tethered, then you don't need to install anything on the Quest!

In the Quest 2/Pro, install the application "VR Sketch". You have to search for it by name (big main page, "Search" button at the top right, enter for example "vrsketch"). It is in the "App Lab" category, so you have to click "App Lab". Here is a direct link: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3557027837758788/. (Note that on Quest 1 you get a slightly older version of VR Sketch.)

If you want to use it together with SketchUp on a PC or a Mac, you need to install VR Sketch for PC/Mac too.

Installation on Quest 1

Reminder: if you have a PC with a good graphics card and only want to run VR Sketch tethered, then you don't need to install anything on the Quest!

If you have an older Quest 1 (also sometimes called just "Quest", by opposition to "Quest 2" or "Quest Pro"), you need to install an older version of VR Sketch. Version 17.0.9 from January 2023 works fine. (See below for why.)

This should now work out of the box; you should be able to install VR Sketch from the App Lab directly on Quest 1, and get the older 17.0.9 version. The instructions below are NOT necessary any more since Meta updated its App Lab to allow us to do that. They are kept here in case something goes wrong.

To do the installation, you need access to a phone with the Meta Quest App. (It is the app that you needed to set up your Quest initially. It used to be called the Oculus App. If you no longer have it, you can reinstall it, possibly on a different phone, and connect your Quest again to it. This might require upgrading your Oculus account to the newer Meta account, a process which can be a bit lengthy.)

Open the Meta Quest App on the phone and make sure it is connected to the Quest 1. Go to "Search", type "vrsketch", scroll down to "App Lab", click "View App", and pick "VR Sketch". Then scroll down and click "More information". Scroll down more and click the blue number next to "Version". Select "Channel" and change it to "Quest1". This should pick the version 17.0.9. Or, as screenshots:


 Only do this step on Quest 1!
 For Quest 2/Pro, keep Channel LIVE.

This should make your Quest install the version 17.0.9. You can start VR Sketch in the headset (from the main page showing installed games). It should say "version 17.0.9" on the wall of the warehouse, below the logo.

If you want to use it together with SketchUp on a PC or a Mac, you need to install VR Sketch for PC/Mac too. It should be fine to install the latest version (18.x or higher) on the PC/Mac even though your Quest has got an older version; all our versions are generally compatible with each other.

Q. Why do I need to change the release channel on Quest 1?

A. We are sorry for this hassle for Quest 1 users. We did not find any other solution so far. VR Sketch 18 gives such a performance benefit for Quest 2/Pro users (about 3 times!) that the benefits are simply too big to ignore.

In more details, in VR Sketch version 18 we did an in-depth refactoring, initially targetted at PC VR. However, it turned out that it also works on Quest 2/Pro. We found out, however, that it does not work on Quest 1, likely because of a slightly older version of the graphics unit. We did not manage to fix this, and so we are left with the current "solution" as a workaround.

Unless we find a solution, we will now only support the Quest 1 in "maintenance" mode. The latest working version is 17.0.9, released in January 2023. You need to change the channel in order to continue using this version 17.0.9 instead of the more recent ones that only work on Quest 2/Pro. Up to at least 2025---and provided the Quest 1 don't all stop working because of a Meta policy decision---we will make sure that 17.0.9 continues to work on Quest 1, and if necessary issue new versions in the 17.x branch that would be available in that channel. We might also backport major functionality upgrades, but not all the smaller changes.

Q. Why do I need to do that on my phone instead of directly inside the Quest?

A. We don't know. This might be an oversight or a strange policy decision of Meta.

Start VR Sketch

In the Quest, run the app "VR Sketch" (from the "Apps" tab on the floating panel).

You are sent to the VR Sketch studio with a floating dialog box in the middle. A 6-digit number appears at the top of this dialog box. This is the unique identifier for your Quest.

The Quest must generally be connected to the Internet via wifi. If it has got no connection, it should still be able to display cloud models that have already been downloaded before ("cached"), but nothing more---unless you use the workaround described next.

If you have problems with the wireless connection, either of setting it up or of performance, and if you don't want to go for trying to render on the PC with the cable constantly connected, then you can try an unofficial workaround that uses the cable only for sending the model. See this post in the forum.

View demo models

In the dialog box, pick one of the demo models to see it. You can come back later to this dialog box to choose another model (use the "cloud" icon, bottom-right in the tools).

Edit with SketchUp running on your PC or Mac

You must install VR Sketch on both the computer and the Quest.

On Mac, you need SketchUp 2020 to really be able to edit: previous versions don't support the "open group" command from VR. On PC, any SketchUp from 2017 works (including SketchUp 2017 Make).

On your PC or Mac, make sure you have installed the latest version of VR Sketch for PC/Mac. The same .rbz file works for both PC or Mac. If you just upgraded, make sure your restart SketchUp now.

Then choose "Extensions", "VR Sketch", "Send to VR on Oculus Quest". Equivalently, pick the second icon in the VR Sketch toolbar.

Make sure the Quest is currently running VR Sketch, and wake it up now (e.g. by putting your hand inside the space where your head normally goes, between the eyes).

You need to enter manually the 6-digit number (see "Start VR Sketch") in the SketchUp dialog box and press "Go".

For performance reasons, it is recommended to try to connect your PC or Mac to the same wireless network as the Quest. If the Quest is not detected locally, you will see "encrypted connection via the cloud". Use the "(?)" link next to this message for more information.

View your own cloud models

Viewing cloud models on Quest can be done with or without the help of a computer running SketchUp.

If you have a long model URL of the form https://vrsketch.eu/m/####################, then you can go to the PC/Mac running SketchUp, "Extensions", "VR Sketch", "View cloud model" and paste that long URL there. Then click "Go on Quest" and finish like explained above.

On the other hand, you can also associate your Quest with your own cloud account. This requires you to have a registered version of VR Sketch to initially upload the model, but you don't need a PC/Mac any more once it is done (e.g. because you are carrying with you your Quest, but not your computer, and want to make a demo).

To do so, you need to authorize your Quest to access the models from your cloud account. To do this, in the Quest's initial floating dialog box, pick "My Account". A 4-digits code is presented to you. (This is a temporary 4-digits code unrelated to the 6-digits Quest number.) Exit the Quest, go to your cloud account page, and log in if necessary. Then click the button "Oculus Quest menu", and copy the 4-digits code there.

Then go back to the Quest. Your cloud models should be listed there too and you can pick one model to view it.

The above procedure gives your Quest read-only access to all your models, as listed below on your cloud account page. The association remains in effect even if you shut down and restart the Quest somewhere else, or if you add more models to your cloud account. In order to revoke this access, you need to log in into your cloud account page again, and in the "Oculus Quest menu" pick the "Remove" button.

Rendering of large models

The Quest doesn't have the power of a good PC, but it's still OK if the models are not too large. In SketchUp, go to Window -> Model Info -> Statistics, select "Enable nested components", and check the "Faces" line.

  • On Quest 1, you should get smooth results up to around 200'000 faces as an order of magnitude.

  • On Quest 2/Pro, with VR Sketch 18 or later, you should get smooth results up to 500'000 or 600'000 faces (again, as an order of magnitude).

  • On Quest 3, with VR Sketch 19 or later, it should be fine with 800'000 faces or more, always as an order of magnitude.

In VR, you can check the rendering speed (images computed per seconds) in the Settings dialog. The normal rendering speed of the Quest is 72 frames per second; we don't recommend looking at models at less than 40 frames per second for longer than a few minutes.

When opening models with many or excessively large textures, they will be downscaled at a lower resolution to fit the memory requirements of the Quest. Nevertheless, large models may trigger an out-of-memory condition, notably if their geometry is too complex (this is less of a problem since VR Sketch 18 on Quest 2/Pro). There are several different things that can occur in this case. It can close the VR Sketch program while loading the model, or the headset's view can turn completely black (exit with the "Oculus" button on the right-hand controller). We try to detect when the situation occurs and display a message to this effect, but sometimes it will only be displayed the next time you restart VR Sketch.

What you can do if your model is too big:

  • Use a PC with tethered rendering. This supports models an order of magnitude larger. The limit then depends on which graphic card (GPU) is in your PC.

  • Or edit your model to remove (or hide) faces. As examples from our own experience, you may figure out that each the cushions uses 20'000 faces, and there are a few trees that count for 50'000 faces each, so hiding them is enough to bring the total down to manageable levels.

  • If all else fail, you will have to focus on a small part of your model at a time by temporarily hiding everything else.

If your computer goes to sleep

When you are working in VR, your computer might go to sleep. The reason is simply that you are not using the mouse or keyboard for a long enough period of time.

Note that VR Sketch version 14.0 does contain an attempt at preventing sleep, but it is known to not work reliably. This is notably the case on Mac, depending on the exact system version.

If you hit this problem, you need either to disable sleep mode manually in the system, or to install a third-party application to do it with one click (e.g. Amphetamine Mac/PC, Caffeine Mac/PC, etc.).

Installation without using the App Lab

This is the old installation process. We keep the documentation here in case you want to install a different version than the one currently on the App Lab. It can be used to install a specific version from our list of all versions or specific forum posts. Note that any file with the version number 18.x.y or later does not work on Quest 1.

Be sure you have the right cable:

You will need a cable to physically connect your computer to the Quest (only during installation). The long charging cable that comes with the Quest works fine if you have a USB-C connector on your computer. If you don't, you will need either a USB-C-to-USB-2 cable, or a converter.

Note that the computer that you use to install things into the Quest doesn't have to be the same computer as the PC/Mac on which you have SketchUp. It can also be any other computer (including Windows, Mac or Linux).

Install SideQuest:

Install SideQuest (Advanced Installer) for PC, Mac or Linux from that page.

Run it; if the cable is properly connected, it might tell you "Dev Mode: Enable dev mode in the Oculus phone app". Follow the instructions to do so. You need to use your phone in addition to the computer; there is no way around it.

Install VR Sketch for Quest:

This assumes that you have downloaded a file with extension ".apk", which contains the version of VR Sketch you want to install on your Quest.

With SideQuest running, drag and drop this apk file from your computer's folder to the SideQuest window (you may have to drop it precisely on the green dot in the top-left corner; it will say "Drop file(s) here!"). To view the result, or if there are errors, click the colorful number "1" among the top-line icons.

Note that if you installed the official version of VR Sketch from the App Lab, you may have to manually uninstall it in the headset first, before you can install the ".apk". Similarly, to switch back to the official version you might have to manually uninstall the ".apk" version.

If everything worked correctly, then in VR, "VRSketch" is installed. It might appear in the "Unknown sources" page, depending on whether you previously installed the App Lab version or not. Here is how to find this page: in the Quest's home environment, click on the   ⋮⋮⋮   (3x3 dots) button. The button in the top-right corner says "All" by default. Click this button, and scroll down and pick "Unknown sources". You should see "VRSketch" in this page.