
OpenXR – Cross-Platform, Portable, Virtual Reality - gnarbarian
https://www.khronos.org/openxr
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boardwaalk
Glad to see Oculus and Valve both on the list of supporters. This is
definitely something that was needed.

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josh64
Sony as well was refreshing to see.

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ktta
Yeah I think that'll make developers lives easier since games developed for
the PS can be easily ported to other platforms.

I don't see microsoft anywhere, although I think they'll have to come around
since everyone else is participating.

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mathw
Wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft are working on a VR layer for DirectX 13 to
use on Windows and Xbox. Just like Vulkan/DirectX 12.

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gnarbarian
Here's a pretty cool interview with Valve's Joe Ludwig on openXR you can to
listen to

[http://voicesofvr.com/509-valves-joe-ludwig-on-khronos-
group...](http://voicesofvr.com/509-valves-joe-ludwig-on-khronos-groups-
openxr-vr-standard/)

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shmerl
Very good, but that's just APIs. Now we also need an open runtime
implementation for those APIs that will work with common hardware.

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zamalek
We don't even have the APIs yet. Knowing Valve's approach with VR, they are
probably going to aggressively pursue OpenXR support.

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shmerl
So far for example SteamVR is tied to Steam. So I'm more interested in open VR
runtime, though of course a common and standard API is very good to have as
well.

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geokon
I've never really done anything with VR, but can someone explain why VR seems
to so desperately needs a standard/API ?

I've done a bit of OpenGL, and _that_ I can understand needing standardization
b/c you're talking to really complicated non-standard hardware and the
graphics pipeline is pretty involved. But with VR... aren't you ultimately
just outputting 2 warped video streams? I understand you have to talk to the
hardware a little bit (to get eye and wand/controller positions) and u need to
know lens parameters, but it seems like a very thin wrapper around the
graphics API.

Am I missing something?

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zeta0134
The video display is probably the very _simplest_ part of the Virtual Reality
experience. While it's directly responsible for a large part of the
experience, it's not actually what needs to be standardized.

Everything else, from the various ways to perform head and motion tracking, to
the myriad of input devices and controllers, varies wildly. Coming up with a
standard cross-section of these features that most platforms support seems
like an excellent idea to me.

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zamalek
> a standard cross-section

I don't envy the people doing this, in terms of controllers:

* There's Leap Motion Orion. Plausibly, there is some future tech involving body tracking.

* Valve doesn't know what the final form of the controller is[1], the current controllers are merely one of the better iterations.

* What we don't know.

There seems to be a need for multiple cross-sections. With the current state
of flux in the field, I'm expecting controller to be highly vendor-extended.

[1]:
[https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0?t=1m9s](https://youtu.be/kMpQWSqQFK0?t=1m9s)

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rasjani
Name is quite similar to ILM's OpenEXR image format.

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ktta
I was thinking why they didn't just go with OpenVR, but looks like valve
already used that name.

[https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr)

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olleromam91
So I don't code, but I have an Electrical Engineering background and a
passionate interest in Technology and VR. How can I get involved with this?

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gallerdude
Learn the basics of coding - CodeAcademy JavaScript to Unity (major VR support
there) I'd recommend.

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madamelic
Why go with an inferior language when you could use C# or C++ instead?

Like JS is well and good for web things but no reason to shove things where
they don't belong.

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kriro
This seems like a very good thing and has support from the right people (which
quite frankly surprises me a bit). The problem/solution graphics are pretty
clear and a great way to visualize why this is a good idea. Bookmarked :)

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tmsldd
I hope it helps to speed up competition. We all expect VR as the next big
revolution but the thing is going too slow..

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ghthor
It's 'X' for EXTREEEEEEME Reality!

