Introduction

NOTE: This article refers to capability only available on Windows PCs

For any application that cannot be embedded within a running Intuiface experience, it is possible to render that experience's background transparent, enabling your audience to interact with Intuiface and your third-party application simultaneously. For example, with this approach, you could combine Intuiface with Google Earth or a business application reliant on Web browser plug-ins unsupported by Intuiface, like Unity.

For an overview of how to create a transparent background, see this article.

Process

The process detailed below is captured in the video that follows.

1. In Project settings, choose "Transparent and permits interactivity" as your experience's Background behavior.
2. For each scene in which you want to enable access to a third-party application, set its Background property to "Transparent".
3. Place a full-screen shape, image, or video in the back layer of each scene that will be rendered transparent. This asset will be hidden when you want to expose the third-party application..
4. Add a button to reveal the third-party application. It will
   
   1. If the third-party application is not already running, call the Launch application action to launch the app. Ensure the app won't be launched each time you call this action. If it does, you should call this action only the first time you click on the button. To achieve this, use a Global Variable and a conditional trigger to specify when Launch application should be called.
   2. Hide the asset used as a background for this scene.
   3. Hide the button.
   4. Show a second button, the button created in the next step.
5. Add a button that will reverse the process
   
   1. Unhide the asset used as a background.
   2. Hide this button.
   3. Show the original button.

Of course, you don't have to use buttons to trigger the required actions. Any trigger source will do.

Sample

Click this link to download the sample illustrated in the video above.