The Khronos Group and its OpenXR platform have been rapidly pushing ahead over the past year since the v1.0 specification was established. Today, the group has announced the launch of the OpenXR 1.0 Adopters Program, Microsoft and Oculus officially supporting implementation as well as cross-vendor hand and eye tracking extensions.
With Microsoft’s and Oculus’ support developers are now able to submit their OpenXR apps to the Oculus Store, whilst Minecraft’s new rendering engine RenderDragon is using OpenXR as the basis for its desktop VR support. Plus Microsoft has released an OpenXR-conformant runtime for HoloLens 2.
A royalty-free, open standard designed to make it easier for virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) developers to make content for a wide range of devices, and OpenXR’s open-source conformance tests help in that process. Published under the Apache 2.0 license on GitHub, the test suite enables any developer to submit conformance test results to ensure their product meets the standard, regardless of being a Khronos member, and become an OpenXR Adopter.
In addition to Microsoft’s and Oculus’ implementation the Khronos Group reveals that open source projects like 3D creation suite, Blender 2.83, Google’s Chromium81 and Varjo have incorporated OpenXR. Additionally, Valve previously released developer preview implementation of OpenXR on SteamVR.
When it comes to the cross-vendor hand and eye tracking extensions this will improve support for both technologies. Ultraleap, for example, has already released preview OpenXR integration for its hand-tracking tech.
“The Working Group has put tremendous effort into OpenXR conformance testing to create a truly reliable cross-platform API. We encourage OpenXR implementers to use the tests in their own development and consider contributing additional tests to help further reduce cross-vendor variability,” said Brent Insko, working group chair, OpenXR Working Group and lead XR architect at Intel in a statement. “With the release of the conformance tests and official launch of the Adopters Program, widening availability of OpenXR across diverse devices, and expanding use in large open-source projects, OpenXR is now ready for the next wave of adoption and deployment.”
“The time to embrace OpenXR is now,” said Don Box, technical fellow at Microsoft. “On the content side, the adoption of OpenXR in Minecraft’s desktop VR product further reinforces Microsoft’s commitment to the success of OpenXR.” This could then eventually see Minecraft VR on more devices.
As OpenXR continues to improve and gain more support, VRFocus will keep you updated on its latest advancements.
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