As of today, OpenXR, the royalty-free standard organized by Khronos Group for cross-platform virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) development, is ratified and available for feedback from developers under OpenXR 0.9.
“With the release of the OpenXR provisional specification, AR/VR developers and creators get their first public access to the API for review and comment,” said Brent Insko, Lead VR Architect at Intel and OpenXR Working Group Chair. “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.”
As a work-in-progress standard under development since April 2017, OpenXR aims to unify the connections between extended reality (XR) hardware, engines, and content in order to provide an interoperable ecosystem. OpenXR is supported by key players in the XR industry, such as Valve, Unity, Epic Games, Microsoft, and Oculus. Khronos is hoping to gather feedback from developers in order to put the finishing touches on before releasing their 1.0 product.
As OpenXR 0.9 is available, Microsoft is releasing an OpenXR runtime for testing content in Windows Mixed Realtiy headsets, and Oculus said they plan to provide runtime support for apps built for OpenXR on Rift and Quest later this year. Interested participants can register to be a part of the OpenXR project on Khronos’ website.
