Start your own HMI

example to set up your own HMI

The scene EmtySceneHMIonly consists of HMI components, demonstrating a standard HMI structure. This is also available as a Prefab HMI serving as a foundation for creating your own HMI. To incorporate the HMI prefab, insert it into your scene and customize it to fit your requirements by adding or removing elements under the appropriate content game object. To make these modifications, simply right-click on the game object in the hierarchy and select Prefab/UnpackCompletly. The example scene contains two HMI-Tabs.

Hierarchy overview HMI

They are activated and deactivated by Tab-Buttons which are organized in a separat panel. The panel is an overlay and always visible.

HMI-Tab 1 - details

HMI-Tab1 shows how to set up a overlay panel. The game object "Panel" uses the component "VerticalLayoutGroup" to organize the buttons by setting the padding and the spacing in between elements.

To change the size of an element use the parameter "Width" and "Height" of the component "RectTransform". This is possible for all HMI elements.

RectTransform component

HMI-Tab 2 details

HMI-Tab 2 uses an overlay content and contains elements in world space. The gif below shows you how the different elements appear when you navigate through the scene:

Behavior HMI-elements in render mode "Worldspace"

The overlay content stays always at the same position. It contains an example how to use a Drop-Down-Menu and a Value Display.

The "WorldspaceContent" section contains two separate elements: HMI_Marker and HMI_Text. The HMI_Text, as well as the HMI_Value, check if they're positioned beneath a canvas. If no canvas is found in the parent object, the "Canvas" component is automatically added and set to "Worldspace" render mode. This feature is currently only available for this HMI-elements. For the other HMI-elements you can use the HMI_PanelWorldSpace prefab, which already includes the canvas component. Just place this prefab under "WorldspaceContent." Subsequent HMI elements are added beneath the panel. This approach allows you to create a user panel within your scene. The HMI Marker doesn't need a canvas because it is a 3D object.