Strachan Ofarrel, known in the physical world as Dave Rowe, continues to enhance the alpha version of his CtrlAltStudio viewer for the Oculus Rift DK2 headset and windows.

Dave has been working steadily on adding DK2 capabilities to CtrlAltStudio for a while now, and this marks the third update to the DK2 Alpha version – officially called 1.2.2.41206 Alpha 3.

The Alpha 1 release, made on August 19th, added preliminary support for the DK2, then Alpha 2, released on August 25th, added positional head tracking. The Alpha 3 release adds initial viewer UI support, as Dave explains in his blog post announcing the release:

This alpha release of the CtrlAltStudio Viewer adds basic UI to the Rift DK2 display. This includes dialogs, avatar toasts, and floating text (i.e., the same UI as displayed with the DK1 in the 1.2.1 Release).

Other changes this release:

Added fade-to-black around the barrel distorted image edges.

Stopped showing the health & safety warning the second and subsequent times into Riftlook view.

Fixed barrel distorted images being displayed lower on the screen than they should be.

Fixed “landing” in the air when flying in Riftlook with an Xbox 360 Controller.

The blog post also contains a reminder that the Alpha version(s) is / are still preliminary, with Dave noting, “it does not work with direct mode and Advanced Lighting Model needs to be turned on. It is built using the 0.4.1 Rift SDK and should work OK with the 0.4.2 Rift SDK.”

Usage is the same as the previous alpha releases. With the DK2 configured in extended mode: use the Windows key + RIGHT CURSOR to move your viewer window onto the Rift’s display, then CTRL+ALT+3 to make the window full screen and switch into Rift view.

As with the previous ALpha releases with DK2 support, this version will install into its own directory, allowing it to be used alongside the release version (although it will obviously over-write Alpha 1 or ALpha 2, if installed).

Further information on the release can be found in the release notes.

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