Let’s talk about OpenXR 🗣
- Specification
- Past and Future
- Support
- Current Scenario
- WebXR
Specification
OpenXR is considered to be the OpenGL of XR (VR/AR/MR/Spatial) ecosystem made possible by The Khronos Group, an open consortium of leading hardware and software companies creating advanced acceleration standards.
As of July 29, 2019 at SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles, The Khronos Group announced public release of the OpenXR 1.0 specification along with it’s partners.
The goal of WebXR is to unify realities what ever it might be in the future. Officially The Khronos Group states “OpenXR is a royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance access to Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) — collectively known as XR — platforms and devices.”
Which means from now on anyone from large organisations to indie devs & artists working on technologies related to XR both hardware and software now have a common standard called OpenXR which will be followed by hardware vendors who will write drivers for OpenXR apps support, OS platform developers to support apps written in OpenXR standards and engines to support for OpenXR export.
Past and Future
I think this is the beginning of what I call as the Metaverse coming together, taking it’s shape and form for the future.
Brent E. Insko the Lead XR Architect at Intel and OpenXR Working Group Chair said
“OpenXR seeks to simplify AR/VR software development, enabling applications to reach a wider array of hardware platforms without having to port or re-write their code and subsequently allowing platform vendors supporting OpenXR access to more applications. With the release of the OpenXR 1.0 specification, AR/VR developers can now create true cross-platform XR experiences.”
The best part is all the major players in the industry are being part of this initiative/group so that if something based on OpenXR standard is published it’s supported everywhere !!!
Support
Current Scenario
Some of the highlights from companies in group are as follows :
- Microsoft has already announced and released it’s support for OpenXR : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/openxr
- Unity and Unreal Engine both are working towards bringing OpenXR support to their respective engines
- Oculus plans to fully adopt OpenXR in the near future starting with Quest and Rift support
- New input device technology companies like Tobii and CTRL-Labs are bring standards to the XR too
WebXR
And one more interesting thing about OpenXR is WebXR which will be again relying on OpenGL will be benefiting a lot from this release of spec.
Brandon Jones WebXR Spec Editor from Google said
“WebXR relies on APIs like OpenXR to provide the communication layer between browsers and virtual reality or augmented reality devices. The Immersive Web Working Group is excited for OpenXR support to become widely available because it has the potential to reduce the development and maintenance burden for WebXR implementers while increasing the range of supported hardware.”
OpenXR brings with it not just an insurgency but freedom, freedom to make content available across platforms and various devices sans the side loading and porting; eliminating the need for third-party software processes. It stands to bring about a change for consumers and revolutionize the industry indicating that it isn’t a gimmick of the future but a trend for today.
As the technology becomes more mainstream, the trend points towards lowering barriers to entry for both creators as well as consumers truly democratizing the open web and bringing it to the masses.
