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Here, this and you: pings and building around people

"Put a lamp here", "hang it on this wall", "a table at my hip height in front of me". Since 1.60 an agent (Build with an AI agent, Claude on claude.ai and voice) knows where here is: you point at it with a ping, and it builds at your pings and around the people in the session.

Ping a spot

Everyone in the session sees a ping as a short marker and hears its chime (your colour and sound, from Settings ▸ Scene):

  • Desktop: Ctrl+Alt+click the spot, or right-click it and choose Ping.
  • Phone or tablet: long-press the spot and choose Ping in the menu.
  • VR: click the controller stick (or Ping in the radial menu) where the ray lands.

A ping on an object remembers where on that object it landed and which way the surface faces, so a ping on a table stays on the table if somebody moves it. Pings last two minutes for agents (the marker fades after a few seconds), at most four a second per person; a viewer may ping too.

How an agent uses it

  • where_are_users gives each person's latest ping, and with pings: true the recent ones: who, how long ago, the point, the surface direction and the object it is on.
  • create_objects and update_objects take at: {ping: "latest"} (or a ping's id). On a floor or a table top the thing stands on it.
  • align: "surface" backs it onto the pinged surface, facing out and upright on a wall: a painting, a sign, a shelf.
  • snap: "floor" stands it on whatever is under it — terrain, a floor, a table — or the ground.
  • face_user turns it (around the vertical only) to face you, or the person named.
  • at: {user: "me", ahead: 1.5, right: 0} builds in front of a person as they stand now, facing them. Asking again as they walk builds around them where they are.

Your size and your hands

where_are_users also gives each person's body — eye height and, from it, height, shoulder, hip, knee and arm reach — and in VR the room (the play area your headset knows) and both hands with the distance between them. Sizes and positions take these as units: "hip", "0.5 reach", "2 eye", "room". "As wide as my hands" uses the hands' distance.

In a headset

  • Nothing an agent makes can appear inside a person in VR: 0.45 m around the head and through the body. The call is refused and says why, so the agent places it in front of you instead.
  • What an agent makes fades in instead of popping.
  • Each thing the agent did shows as a small line under your view for a few seconds.

Cookbook

  • "Put a lamp here": ping the table, say it. The agent calls create_objects with at: {ping: "latest"}.
  • "Hang this on the wall": ping the wall; align: "surface".
  • "A stool in front of me at knee height": at: {user: "me", ahead: 1} with a seat height of "knee".