Focus 3 - OpenXR support status?

[jefmes]

I should be getting my Focus 3 order "soon" and thought I'd ask ahead of time - what is the current status of native OpenXR support on the Focus 3? I'm hoping to use it (eventually) for mostly OpenXR and WebXR experimentation, using things like StereoKit and Babylon.JS or Three.js. I'm assuming WebXR should be fine via Firefox Reality browser, but I don't recall seeing how OpenXR support will work in standalone mode or via PC streaming mode. I'm familiar with Windows Mixed Reality's portal providing OpenXR support there for native apps, but would the Focus 3 have its own that would need to be installed, or would we need to rely on SteamVR's implementation for now?

Any links to relevant documentation would be great! Thanks.

[HackPerception]

@jefmes

- Full OpenXR support for Focus 3 is anticipated later this year in Q3/Q4. We're working with Khronos to achieve this. Until then, support for Focus 3 comes from integration of the WaveSDK.

-F3 does ship with Firefox Reality, however - the Firefox VR team has been greatly affected by layoffs and the industry will need to shift away from Firefox until their VR team recovers.

[jefmes]

Ok great I'll take a look at the WaveSDK for now, thanks! 

That makes sense about Firefox Reality, that's unfortunate. Are there alternatives to it available on the headset? Sounds like something the open source VR community might need to pick up the way TiltBrush was revitalized. 🙂 A browser is definitely a different beast though...

[jefmes]

On 7/8/2021 at 6:36 AM, HackPerception said:

@jefmes

- Full OpenXR support for Focus 3 is anticipated later this year in Q3/Q4. We're working with Khronos to achieve this. Until then, support for Focus 3 comes from integration of the WaveSDK.

-F3 does ship with Firefox Reality, however - the Firefox VR team has been greatly affected by layoffs and the industry will need to shift away from Firefox until their VR team recovers.

I tweeted a quick note to the HTC Vive account about this, but I thought it might be good to share for others who are looking for OpenXR support. Oculus/Facebook just took a big leap forward into fully making OpenXR the true standard for interoperability. I'm fully backing HTC in this fight right now, so I hope to see something similar posted publicly! There are 2 months left in Q3, c'mon we can do this. 🙂

Oculus All In on OpenXR: Deprecates Proprietary APIs

[HackPerception]

@jefmes OpenXR is definitely the future - we're engineering the hardware level integration for Focus 3 presently. Its takes a chunk time to do the hardware level integration/optimization because of the hyper specific XR2 architecture. We even have an OpenXR beta runtime for Cosmos - you can actually run content in that headset without SteamVR if one was so inclined in the future and had a compatible .exe.

[jefmes]

8 hours ago, HackPerception said:

@jefmes OpenXR is definitely the future - we're engineering the hardware level integration for Focus 3 presently. Its takes a chunk time to do the hardware level integration/optimization because of the hyper specific XR2 architecture. We even have an OpenXR beta runtime for Cosmos - you can actually run content in that headset without SteamVR if one was so inclined in the future and had a compatible .exe.

Most excellent! I was getting pretty used to using the native OpenXR for WMR runtime on the Reverb G2, so very much looking forward to that being supported as well on the Focus 3. I've also been experimenting with StereoKit a bit which is focused on OpenXR, so a native solution would be helpful there too. Even with SteamVR's OpenXR implementation while using Vive Business Streaming, for some reason I haven't been able to get controllers/hands working in StereoKit, but head tracking is otherwise working well. 

[jefmes]

On 7/23/2021 at 6:30 PM, jefmes said:

F3 does ship with Firefox Reality, however - the Firefox VR team has been greatly affected by layoffs and the industry will need to shift away from Firefox until their VR team recovers.

Do you guys have any other recommendations for VR browsers on the Focus 3 until Mozilla either ramps up again on Firefox Reality or someone else takes over the project? This feels like a very large gap on the headset right now. We still can't use Mozilla Hubs at all, half of the WebXR content I try breaks or crashes FR and it's just not a very good experience at the moment. That's really unfortunate for a headset like this that's so perfect for standalone web content.

I'm almost tempted to try building Chromium for it LOL...but I can only see that going badly.

[chrpetry]

Any news on this? Seems like OpenXR still not working (even in beta) @Tony PH Lin @C.T.

[Spiess]

I would also highly appreciate an update on this, as it may affect upcoming purchase decisions I will be involved in.

An official roadmap of some kind would be great as well, if this will not be ready anytime soon.

[fuzzybear3965]

Hey, @HackPerception @Tony PH Lin @C.T., any updates to share on this as Q4 draws to a close?