Hi all,
I've encountered a potential issue with how the winding order of geometry is handled when their transformations involve negative scaling.
I created a simple test asset, a single triangle, to demonstrate this. The triangle's vertices are defined in a counter-clockwise ("right-handed") winding order, and its transform has a negative scale on the X-axis. According to the OpenUSD specification, this negative determinant in the transformation matrix should effectively reverse the winding order of the geometry:
However, any given gprim's local-to-world transformation can flip its effective orientation, when it contains an odd number of negative scales. This condition can be reliably detected using the (Jacobian) determinant of the local-to-world transform: if the determinant is less than zero, then the gprim's orientation has been flipped, and therefore one must apply the opposite handedness rule when computing its surface normals (or just flip the computed normals) for the purposes of hidden surface detection and lighting calculations.
When I view the asset in tools like Blender or Preview on macOS, it behaves as expected. The triangle's effective orientation is flipped to CW.
However, when the same asset is viewed in Reality Composer Pro or with QuickLook on iOS, its effective orientation remains CCW. In other words, the triangle faces the opposite direction.
My questions for the community and Apple are:
Is this behavior in RealityKit a known issue?
If this is a known issue, is there official guidance for DCC tools on how to export USDZ assets to ensure they appear correctly in the Apple ecosystem?
Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
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Has anyone come across the issue that setting GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler breaks a RealityView's world tracking on iOS / iPadOS 18 beta 5?
I'm in the process of upgrading my app to make use of the much appreciated RealityView unification, using RealityView not only on visionOS but now also on iOS and iPadOS. In my RealityView, I enable world tracking on iOS like this:
content.camera = .worldTracking
However, device position and orientation were ignored (the camera remained static) and there was no camera pass-through. Then I discovered that the issue disappeared when I remove the line
GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler = { viewController, error in
// ... some more code ...
}
So I filed FB14731139 and hope that it will be resolved before the release of iOS / iPadOS 18.
Apple, please bring back SceneKit.
I just upgraded my macOS, Xcode and Simulator all to the newest beta version 26.
Then I found two issues when building my app with Xcode 26 and running it on simulator 26.
The game center access point no longer shows up in the app. This is how it's configured in the past. And it still works on simulator 18.4
func authenticatePlayer() {
GKAccessPoint.shared.location = .topTrailing
self.localPlayer.authenticateHandler = { viewController, error in
if let viewController = viewController {
// can present Game Center login screen
} else if self.localPlayer.isAuthenticated {
// game can be started
} else {
// user didn't log in, continue the game without game center
}
}
}
After game ended, the leaderboard won't load. This is how it's implemented in the past. It's still working in simulator 18.4
struct GameCenterView: UIViewControllerRepresentable {
@Environment(\.presentationMode) var presentationMode
...
func makeUIViewController(context: Context) -> GKGameCenterViewController {
let viewController = GKGameCenterViewController(
leaderboardID: getLeaderBoardID(with: leaderBoardGameMode),
playerScope: .global,
timeScope: .allTime
)
viewController.gameCenterDelegate = context.coordinator
return viewController
}
func updateUIViewController(_ uiViewController: GKGameCenterViewController, context: Context) {}
func makeCoordinator() -> Coordinator {
Coordinator(self)
}
class Coordinator: NSObject, GKGameCenterControllerDelegate {
let parent: GameCenterView
init(_ parent: GameCenterView) {
self.parent = parent
}
func gameCenterViewControllerDidFinish(_ gameCenterViewController: GKGameCenterViewController) {
parent.presentationMode.wrappedValue.dismiss()
}
}
}
Is there any standard way of efficiently showing a MTLTexture on a RealityKit Entity?
I can't find anything proper on how to , for example, generate a LowLevelTexture out of a MTLTexture. Closest match was this two year old thread.
In the old SceneKit app, we would just do
guard let material = someNode.geometry?.materials.first else { return }
material.diffuse.contents = mtlTexture
Our flow is as follows (for visualizing the currently detected object):
Camera-Stream -> CoreML Segmentation -> Send the relevant part of the MLShapedArray-Tensor to a MTLComputeShader that returns a MTLTexture -> Show the resulting texture on a 3D object to the user
Can I use them in SK and do the animations work?
Thanks, Patrick
I am an AR developer working on Apple Silicon Macs. Currently, Reality Composer Pro does not allow exporting .reality files, and Reality Composer (classic) is not available for Apple Silicon. This creates a gap in the workflow for ARKit/RealityKit developers who need interactive .reality files for use in Xcode projects.
Having the ability to export .reality files directly from Reality Composer Pro on Mac would greatly streamline development and enable a fully native workflow on modern Macs. Alternatively, bringing Reality Composer (classic) to Apple Silicon would also resolve this issue.
I have submitted this as a feature request via Feedback Assistant (FB17900386). I encourage others with similar needs to reply or submit feedback as well.
Thank you!
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
RealityKit
Tags:
ARKit
Reality Composer
RealityKit
Reality Composer Pro
We as a team of engineers work on an app intended to visualize medical images. The type of situations where the app is used involves time critical decision making for acute clinical conditions. Stability of the app and performance are of utmost importance and can directly help timely treatment action. The app we are developing uses multiple libraries and tools like vtk, webgl, opengl, webkit, gl-matrix etc.
The problem specifically can be described as follows, it has been observed that when 3D volume is rendered in the app and we try to rotate the volume the rotation is slow, unresposive and laggy. Specifically, we have noticed that iOS 18.1 the volume rotation is much smoother as compared to latest iOS 18.2. Eariler, we have faced somewhat similar issue with iOS 17 but it got improved in iOS 18.1. This performance regression is affecting the user experience in our healthcare application.
We have taken reference from the cornerstone.js code and you can reproduce the issue using the following example: https://www.cornerstonejs.org/live-examples/volumeviewport3d
Steps to Reproduce:
Load the above mentioned test example on an iPhone running version 18.2 using safari.
Perform volume rendering using the provided dataset.
Measure the time taken by volume for each rotate or drag action.
Repeat the same steps on an iPhone running version 18.1 for comparison.
Additional Information:
Device Model Tested:
iPhone12, iPhone13, iPhone14
iOS Version With Issue:
18.2
18.3(Beta)
I would appreciate any insights or suggestions on how to address this performance regression. If additional information is needed, please let me know.
Thank you.
Hello
XQuartz is an open-source effort to develop a version of the X.Org X Window System (https://www.xquartz.org/), widely used to bring graphical support to applications running in remote servers (usually via SSH).
Since macOS Tahoe, XQuartz fails to refresh properly on window resize (more info here https://github.com/XQuartz/XQuartz/issues/438#issuecomment-3371409500), leading to severe usability issues.
The XQuartz developers are already aware of the issue, but I’m wondering if there’s anything we can do at the OS level to resolve it and restore the usual behavior from before macOS Tahoe.
Thanks,
KiM
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
General
I'm building a game with a client-server architecture. Using GKMatch.chooseBestHostingPlayer(_:) rarely works. When I started testing it today, it worked once at the very beginning, and since then it always succeeds on one client and returns nil on the other client. I'm testing with a Mac and an iPhone. Sometimes it fails on the Mac, sometimes on the iPhone. On the device that it succeeds on, the provided host can be the device itself or the other one.
I created FB9583628 in August 2021, but after the Feedback Assistant team replied that they are not able to reproduce it, the feedback never went forward.
import SceneKit
import GameKit
#if os(macOS)
typealias ViewController = NSViewController
#else
typealias ViewController = UIViewController
#endif
class GameViewController: ViewController, GKMatchmakerViewControllerDelegate, GKMatchDelegate {
var match: GKMatch?
var matchStarted = false
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler = authenticate
}
private func authenticate(_ viewController: ViewController?, _ error: Error?) {
#if os(macOS)
if let viewController = viewController {
presentAsSheet(viewController)
} else if let error = error {
print(error)
} else {
print("authenticated as \(GKLocalPlayer.local.gamePlayerID)")
let viewController = GKMatchmakerViewController(matchRequest: defaultMatchRequest())!
viewController.matchmakerDelegate = self
GKDialogController.shared().present(viewController)
}
#else
if let viewController = viewController {
present(viewController, animated: true)
} else if let error = error {
print(error)
} else {
print("authenticated as \(GKLocalPlayer.local.gamePlayerID)")
let viewController = GKMatchmakerViewController(matchRequest: defaultMatchRequest())!
viewController.matchmakerDelegate = self
present(viewController, animated: true)
}
#endif
}
private func defaultMatchRequest() -> GKMatchRequest {
let request = GKMatchRequest()
request.minPlayers = 2
request.maxPlayers = 2
request.defaultNumberOfPlayers = 2
request.inviteMessage = "Ciao!"
return request
}
func matchmakerViewControllerWasCancelled(_ viewController: GKMatchmakerViewController) {
print("cancelled")
}
func matchmakerViewController(_ viewController: GKMatchmakerViewController, didFailWithError error: Error) {
print(error)
}
func matchmakerViewController(_ viewController: GKMatchmakerViewController, didFind match: GKMatch) {
self.match = match
match.delegate = self
startMatch()
}
func match(_ match: GKMatch, player: GKPlayer, didChange state: GKPlayerConnectionState) {
print("\(player.gamePlayerID) changed state to \(String(describing: state))")
startMatch()
}
func startMatch() {
let match = match!
if matchStarted || match.expectedPlayerCount > 0 {
return
}
print("starting match with local player \(GKLocalPlayer.local.gamePlayerID) and remote players \(match.players.map({ $0.gamePlayerID }))")
match.chooseBestHostingPlayer { host in
print("host is \(String(describing: host?.gamePlayerID))")
}
}
}
I am creating a RealityKit scene that will contain over 12,000 duplicate cubes arranged in a circle (see image below). This is for some high-energy physical simulations I am doing. I accomplish this scene by creating a single cube and cloning it a bunch of times. So, I there is a single MeshResource and Material even though there are a lot of entities. I have confirmed this by checking with Swift's === operator. Even with this, the program is unworkably slow.
Any suggestions or tricks that could help with this type of scene?
Using a single geometry was the trick to getting SceneKit to work fast with geometries like this. I've been updating my software to RealityKit because I far prefer the structure of RealityKit over SceneKit.
In my project I need to do the following:
In runtime create metal Dynamic library from source.
In runtime create metal Executable library from source and Link it with my previous created Dynamic library.
Create compute pipeline using those two libraries created above.
But I get the following error at the third step:
Error Domain=AGXMetalG15X_M1 Code=2 "Undefined symbols:
_Z5noisev, referenced from: OnTheFlyKernel
" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Undefined symbols:
_Z5noisev, referenced from: OnTheFlyKernel
}
import Foundation
import Metal
class MetalShaderCompiler {
let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice()!
var pipeline: MTLComputePipelineState!
func compileDylib() -> MTLDynamicLibrary {
let source = """
#include <metal_stdlib>
using namespace metal;
half3 noise() {
return half3(1, 0, 1);
}
"""
let option = MTLCompileOptions()
option.libraryType = .dynamic
option.installName = "@executable_path/libFoundation.metallib"
let library = try! device.makeLibrary(source: source, options: option)
let dylib = try! device.makeDynamicLibrary(library: library)
return dylib
}
func compileExlib(dylib: MTLDynamicLibrary) -> MTLLibrary {
let source = """
#include <metal_stdlib>
using namespace metal;
extern half3 noise();
kernel void OnTheFlyKernel(texture2d<half, access::read> src [[texture(0)]],
texture2d<half, access::write> dst [[texture(1)]],
ushort2 gid [[thread_position_in_grid]]) {
half4 rgba = src.read(gid);
rgba.rgb += noise();
dst.write(rgba, gid);
}
"""
let option = MTLCompileOptions()
option.libraryType = .executable
option.libraries = [dylib]
let library = try! self.device.makeLibrary(source: source, options: option)
return library
}
func runtime() {
let dylib = self.compileDylib()
let exlib = self.compileExlib(dylib: dylib)
let pipelineDescriptor = MTLComputePipelineDescriptor()
pipelineDescriptor.computeFunction = exlib.makeFunction(name: "OnTheFlyKernel")
pipelineDescriptor.preloadedLibraries = [dylib]
pipeline = try! device.makeComputePipelineState(descriptor: pipelineDescriptor, options: .bindingInfo, reflection: nil)
}
}
Hi All!
I'm being asked to migrate an app which utilizes iCloud KVS (Key Value Storage). This ability is a new-ish feature, and the documentation about this is sparse [1]. Honestly, the entire documentation about the new iCloud transfer functionality seems to be missing. Same with Game Center / GameKit. While the docs say that it should work, I'd like to understand the process in more detail.
Has anyone migrated an iCloud KVS app? What happens after the transfer goes through, but before the first release? Do I need to do anything special? I see that the Entitlements file has the TeamID in the Key Value store - is that fine?
<key>com.apple.developer.ubiquity-kvstore-identifier</key>
<string>$(TeamIdentifierPrefix)$(CFBundleIdentifier)</string>
Can someone please share their experience?
Thank you!
[1] https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/transfer-an-app/overview-of-app-transfer
Hello,
I recently watched the WWDC2025 session titled “Combine Metal 4 machine learning and graphics” (https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/262/ ), and I’m very excited about the new Metal 4 features that integrate machine learning with graphics—such as neural ambient occlusion, shader-based ML inference, and the use of MTLTensor and MTL4MachineLearningCommandEncoder.
While the session includes helpful code snippets and a compelling debug demo (e.g., the neural ambient occlusion example), the implementation details are not fully shown, and I haven’t been able to find a complete, runnable sample project that demonstrates end-to-end integration of ML and rendering in Metal 4.
Would Apple be able to provide a full, working example—such as an Xcode project—that shows how to:
Export a model to an .mlpackage,
Convert it to an .mtlpackage,
Use MTL4MachineLearningCommandEncoder alongside render passes,
Or embed small neural networks directly in shaders using Shader ML?
Having such a sample would greatly help developers like me adopt these powerful new capabilities correctly and efficiently.
Thank you very much for your time and support!
Best regards,
After updating to MacOS 26.1 I encountered an issue that Roblox tends to freeze quite often for 10 - 60 seconds at most, this is really annoying that it is doing this as i play the game a lot. My theory is that it is like a driver issue with metal or something, I have reinstalled MacOS, reinstalled the game and lowed the performance manually but nothing is working.
Wondering if you could help, when it will be fixed and if others are having the same issue.
Many thanks, William.
Breaking Through PolySpatial's ~8k Object Limit – Seeking Alternative Approaches for Large-Scale Digital Twins
Confirmed: PolySpatial make Doubles MeshFilter Count – Hard Limit at ~8k Active Objects (15.9k Total)
Project Context & Research Goals
I’m developing an industrial digital twin application for Apple Vision Pro using Unity’s PolySpatial framework (RealityKit rendering in Unbounded_Volume mode). The scene contains complex factory environments with:
Production line equipment Many fragmented grid objects need to be merged.)
Dynamic product racks (state-switchable assets)
Animated worker avatars
To optimize performance, I’m systematically testing visionOS’s rendering capacity limits. Through controlled stress tests, I’ve identified a critical threshold:
Key Finding
When the total MeshFilter count reaches 15,970 (system baseline + 7,985 user-created objects × 2 due to PolySpatial cloning), the application crashes consistently. This suggests:
PolySpatial’s mirroring mechanism effectively doubles GameObject overhead
An apparent hard limit exists around ~8k active mesh objects in practice
Objectives for This Discussion
Verify if others have encountered similar limits with PolySpatial/RealityKit
Understand whether this is a:
Memory constraint (per-app allocation)
Render pipeline limit (Metal draw calls)
Unity-specific PolySpatial behavior
Explore optimization strategies beyond brute-force object reduction
Why This Matters
Industrial metaverse applications require rendering thousands of interactive objects . Confirming these limits will help our team:
Design safer content guidelines
Prioritize GPU instancing/LOD investments
Potentially contribute back to PolySpatial’s optimization
I’d appreciate insights from engineers who’ve:
Pushed similar large-scale scenes in visionOS
Worked around PolySpatial’s cloning overhead
Discovered alternative capacity limits (vertices/draw calls)
Hello,
I've been trying to leverage instanced rendering in RealityKit on visionOS but have not had success.
RealityKit states this is supported:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/validating-usd-files
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10075/?time=1373
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10099/?time=772
RealityKit Trace metrics
Validating instancing is working:
To test I made a base visionOS app with immersive space and the entity replaced with my test usdz file. I've been using the RealityKit Trace profiling template in xcode instruments in the immersive space and volume closed. This gets consistent draw call results.
If I have a single sphere mesh with one material I get one draw call, but the number of draw calls grows linearly with mesh count no matter how my entity is configured.
What I've tried
Create a test scene in blender, export with instancing enabled
Create a test scene in Reality Composer Pro using references
Author usda files by hand based on the OpenUSD spec
Programatically create a MeshResource with Contents at runtime
References
https://openusd.org/release/api/_usd__page__scenegraph_instancing.html
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/meshresource
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/meshresource/instance
Thank you
Hi experts,
When I open a USDZ file which contains perspective cameras by "Files" app in IOS 18.2/iPadOS 18.2, I can't see anything. And when I open the USDZ file in IOS 18.1/iPadOS 18.1, it works well.
On the other hand, when I open a USDZ file which contains orthographic cameras in IOS 18.1 or IOS 18.2, the scene is stuck.
Could you help to solve these issues please?
Thanks.
Hello!
I'm currently building an app where I feed images into a Photogrammetry session to create a USDZ. Pretty straightforward, works great. We've recently started some testing on older devices, and have discovered that Photogrammetry is requiring devices that have LIDAR (we've seen some console logs referencing LIDAR if we stumble through a photogrammetry process without checking isSupported first)
Judging from @swredcam's posting about ReefScan from November 24 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/769221) it looks like Photogrammetry did work on those non-LIDAR devices. In my own testing on an iPhone 12 mini with iOS 17, PhotogrammetrySession says it's not supported.
Since we're only feeding in a sequence of photos that have never had depth data, and they process fine on pro/max devices, we're curious why this would require a LIDAR sensor to work, when it seems like it did work without LIDAR in the past. Or is there some other limitation of non-pro devices that is causing photogrammetry to not be supported (especially on today's really powerful hardware)
Thanks!
++md
I have a Mac Studio 2023 M2 Max
Running Sonoma 14.6.1
Developing in XCode 16.1
It seems that the NSScreen frame settings may be incorrect. The frame settings received from NSScreen.screens don't seem to match up with the Desktop arrangement settings in the Settings.
Apologies in advance for this long post!
for screen in NSScreen.screens {
let name = screen.localizedName
Globals.logger.debug("Globals initializeScreens - screen \(i) '\(name, privacy: .public)'")
Globals.logger.debug("Globals initializeScreens - '\(screen.debugDescription, privacy: .public)'")
}
This is what I receive in the log:
Globals initializeScreens - '<NSScreen: 0x600000ef4240;
name="PHL 346E2C";
backingScaleFactor=1.000000;
frame={{0, 0}, {3440, 1440}};
visibleFrame={{0, 0}, {3440, 1415}}>'
Globals initializeScreens - screen 2 'Blackmagic (1)'
Globals initializeScreens - '<NSScreen: 0x600000ef42a0;
name="Blackmagic (1)";
backingScaleFactor=1.000000;
frame={{-3840, 0}, {1920, 1080}};
visibleFrame={{-3840, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
Globals initializeScreens - screen 3 'Blackmagic (4)'
Globals initializeScreens - '<NSScreen: 0x600000ef4360;
name="Blackmagic (4)";
backingScaleFactor=1.000000;
frame={{-1920, 0}, {1920, 1080}};
visibleFrame={{-1920, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
Globals initializeScreens - screen 4 'Blackmagic (2)'
Globals initializeScreens - '<NSScreen: 0x600000ef43c0;
name="Blackmagic (2)";
backingScaleFactor=1.000000;
frame={{5360, 0}, {1920, 1080}};
visibleFrame={{5360, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
Globals initializeScreens - screen 5 'Blackmagic (3)'
Globals initializeScreens - '<NSScreen: 0x600000ef4420;
name="Blackmagic (3)";
backingScaleFactor=1.000000;
frame={{3440, 0}, {1920, 1080}};
visibleFrame={{3440, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
It looks like the frame settings for Blackmagic (2) and Blackmagic (4) are switched.
The setup has five monitors. Four are using the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapters. The output for these are streamed into a rack of A/V equipment using BlackMagic Design mini converters and monitors.
My Swift application allows users to open four movies, one for each of the AV Adapters. The movies can then be played back in sync for later processing by the A/V equipment.
Here are some screen captures that show my display settings.
Blackmagic (1) and Blackmagic (2) are to the left of the main screen.
Blackmagic (3) and Blackmagic(4) are to the right of the main screen.
The desktop is hard to see but is correct.
The wallpaper settings are all correct.
The wallpaper is correctly ordered when displayed on the monitors.
After opening the movies and using the NSScreen frame settings, the displays are incorrectly ordered. Test B and Test D are switched, which is what I would expect given the NSScreen frame values.
Any ideas? I've tried re-arranging the desktops, rebooting, etc. but no luck.
The code that changes the screen location is similar to this post on Stack Overflow
public func setDisplay( screen: NSScreen ) {
Globals.logger.log("MovieWindowController - setDisplay = \(screen.localizedName, privacy: .public)")
Globals.logger.debug("MovieWindowController - setDisplay - '\(screen.debugDescription, privacy: .public)'")
let dx = CGFloat(Constants.midX)
let dy = CGFloat(Constants.midY)
var pos = NSPoint()
pos.x = screen.visibleFrame.midX - dx
pos.y = screen.visibleFrame.midY - dy
Globals.logger.debug("MovieWindowController - setDisplay - x = '\(pos.x, privacy: .public)', y = '\(pos.y, privacy: .public)'")
window?.setFrameOrigin(pos)
}
The log show just what I would expect given the incorrect frame values.
MovieWindowController - setDisplay = Blackmagic (1)
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - '<NSScreen: 0x6000018e8420; name="Blackmagic (1)"; backingScaleFactor=1.000000; frame={{-3840, 0}, {1920, 1080}}; visibleFrame={{-3840, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - x = '-3840.000000', y = '-12.500000'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay = Blackmagic (2)
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - '<NSScreen: 0x6000018a10e0; name="Blackmagic (2)"; backingScaleFactor=1.000000; frame={{5360, 0}, {1920, 1080}}; visibleFrame={{5360, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - x = '5360.000000', y = '-12.500000'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay = Blackmagic (3)
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - '<NSScreen: 0x6000018cc8a0; name="Blackmagic (3)"; backingScaleFactor=1.000000; frame={{3440, 0}, {1920, 1080}}; visibleFrame={{3440, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - x = '3440.000000', y = '-12.500000'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay = Blackmagic (4)
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - '<NSScreen: 0x6000018c9ce0; name="Blackmagic (4)"; backingScaleFactor=1.000000; frame={{-1920, 0}, {1920, 1080}}; visibleFrame={{-1920, 0}, {1920, 1055}}>'
MovieWindowController - setDisplay - x = '-1920.000000', y = '-12.500000'
Am I correct? I think this is driving me crazy!
Thanks in advance!
Edit: The mouse behavior is correct in moving across the displays!
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
General