Discuss spatial computing on Apple platforms and how to design and build an entirely new universe of apps and games for Apple Vision Pro.

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Issue with tracking multiple images using ARKit on VisionOS
We are using the ARKit image tracking feature on visionOS 2.0 with three pre-registered images. The image tracking works, but only one image is actively tracked at a time. When more than one target image is visible to the camera, it has difficulty detecting and tracking the other images. Is this the expected behavior in visionOS, or is there something we need to do to resolve this issue?
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Mar ’25
ShaderGraphMaterial with Occlusion Surface Output fails to load on iOS and macOS
A ShaderGraphMaterial with an Occlusion Surface Output generated with RealityComposer 2 fails to load on iOS 18 and macOS 15 with the following error: RealityFoundation.ShaderGraphMaterial.LoadError.invalidTypeFound (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/shadergraphmaterial/loaderror/invalidtypefound) This happens with both https://developer.apple.com/documentation/shadergraph/realitykit/occlusion-surface-(realitykit) and https://developer.apple.com/documentation/shadergraph/realitykit/shadow-receiving-occlusion-surface-(realitykit) RealityView { content in do { let bgEntity = ModelEntity(mesh: .generateCone(height: 0.5, radius: 0.1), materials: [SimpleMaterial(color: .red, isMetallic: true)]) bgEntity.position.z = -0.2 content.add(bgEntity) let occlusionMaterial = try await ShaderGraphMaterial(named: "/Root/OcclusionMaterial", from: "OcclusionMaterial") let testEntity = ModelEntity(mesh: .generateSphere(radius: 0.4), materials: [occlusionMaterial]) content.add(testEntity) content.cameraTarget = testEntity } catch { print("Shader Graph Load Error:") dump(error) } } .realityViewCameraControls(.orbit) .edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all) Feedback ID: FB15081296
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1.3k
Nov ’25
RoomCaptureSession with ARSCNView crashes when scanning multiple hotspots across different rooms
We're developing an iOS application that integrates RoomCaptureSession with ARSCNView for room scanning. Our implementation differs from the standard RoomCaptureView because we need custom UI guidance with 3D dots placed in the scanning environment to guide users through the capture process. Bug Description: The application crashes when users attempt to scan multiple rooms or apartments in sequence. The crash specifically occurs with the following pattern: User successfully scans first room with multiple hotspots (working correctly) User stops scanning, moves to a new room In the new room, first 1-2 hotspots work correctly Application crashes when attempting to scan additional hotspots Technical Details: Error: SLAM Anchor assertion failure in SlamAnchor.cpp:37 : HasValidPose() Crash occurs in Thread 27 with CAPIDetectionOutputFwdNode Error suggests invalid positioning when placing AR anchors Steps to Reproduce: Start room scan Complete multiple hotspot captures in first room Stop scanning Start new room scan Capture 1-2 hotspots successfully Attempt additional hotspot captures -> crashes Attempted Solutions: Implemented anchor cleanup between sessions Added position validation before anchor placement Implemented ARSession error handling Added proper thread management for AR operations Environment: Device: iPhone 14 Pro (LiDAR equipped) iOS Version: 18.1.1 (22B91) Testing through TestFlight Crash Log Details: Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000 Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY Triggered by Thread: 27 Thread 27 Crashed: 0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00000001f0cc91d4 __pthread_kill + 8 1 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x0000000228e12ef8 pthread_kill + 268 2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00000001a86bbad8 abort + 128 3 AppleCV3D 0x0000000234d71a28 cv3d::vio::capi::SlamAnchor::SlamAnchor Question: Is there a recommended approach for handling multiple room captures with custom ARSCNView integration? The standard RoomCaptureView implementation doesn't show this behavior, but we need the custom guidance functionality that ARSCNView provides. Crash Log Code and full crash logs can be provided if needed.
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Feb ’25
Guided Access - Detect when setup (Eyes + Hands) is done
Hello, I am building a kiosk-style app for VisionOS which will be used in Guided Access mode, to be given to various visitors. So each of them will do hands + eyes setup, standard Guided Access thing. I want my experience to auto-start playing content when setup is done. I looked everywhere, but found no way do detect whether setup is complete? Also adding any kind of interface to start the app manually is risky, since buttons etc remain visible an interactable WHILE setup takes place. Delay-based approach also wont work, since setup can be skipped, or failed, or be done quickly, slowly... So it takes between 10 seconds and a few minutes. So the question is - is there any way to get notification, or check some bool or something that will tell me that Hands + Eyes setup in Guided mode is complete (or skipped)? Thanks in advance!
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Request File Access from Unity for Apple Vision Pro
Hi, I am trying to load files from the Apple Vision Pro's storage into a Unity App (using Apple visionOS XR Plugin and not PolySpatial package). So far, I've tried using UnitySimpleFileBrowser and UnityStandaloneFileBrowser (both aren't made for the Vision Pro and don't work there), and then implemented my own naive file browser that at least allows me to view directories (that I can see from the App Sandbox). This is of course very limited: Gray folders can't be accessed, the only 3 available ones don't contain anything where a user would put files through the "Files" app. I know that an app can request access to these "Files & Folders": So my question is: Is there a way to request this access for a Unity-built app at the moment? If yes, what do I need to do? I've looked into the generated Xcode project's "Capabilities", but did not find anything related to file access. Any help is appreciated!
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Oct ’25
Does Apple Spatial Audio Format documentation exist
The WWDC25 video and notes titled “Learn About Apple Immersive Video Technologies” introduced the Apple Spatial Audio Format (ASAF) and codec (APAC). However, despite references throughout on using immersive video, there is scant information on ASAF/APAC (including no code examples and no framework references), and I’ve found no documentation in Apple’s APIs/Frameworks about its implementation and use months on. I want to leverage ambisonic audio in my app. I don’t want to write a custom AU if APAC will be opened up to developers. If you read the notes below along with the iPhone 17 advertising (“Video is captured with Spatial Audio for immersive listening”), it sounds like this is very much a live feature in iOS26. Anyone know the state of play? I’m across how the PHASE engine works, which is unrelated to what I’m asking about here. Original quote from video referenced above: “ASAF enables truly externalized audio experiences by ensuring acoustic cues are used to render the audio. It’s composed of new metadata coupled with linear PCM, and a powerful new spatial renderer that’s built into Apple platforms. It produces high resolution Spatial Audio through numerous point sources and high resolution sound scenes, or higher order ambisonics.” ”ASAF is carried inside of broadcast Wave files with linear PCM signals and metadata. You typically use ASAF in production, and to stream ASAF audio, you will need to encode that audio as an mp4 APAC file.” ”APAC efficiently distributes ASAF, and APAC is required for any Apple immersive video experience. APAC playback is available on all Apple platforms except watchOS, and supports Channels, Objects, Higher Order Ambisonics, Dialogue, Binaural audio, interactive elements, as well as provisioning for extendable metadata.”
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Sep ’25
RoomPlan Framework v2 - Stairs missing
Hello Community, I'm encountering an issue with the latest iOS 17 update, specifically related to RoomPlan version-2. In iOS 16, when using RoomPlan version-1, we were able to display stairs in our app. However, after upgrading to iOS 17 and implementing RoomPlan version-2, the stairs are no longer visible. Despite thorough investigation, I couldn't find any option within the code to show or hide stairs, or any other objects for that matter. It seems like a specific issue with the update rather than a coding error on our part. Has anyone else encountered a similar problem? If so, I would greatly appreciate any insights or solutions you might have. It's crucial for our app functionality to have stairs displayed accurately, and we're currently at a loss on how to address this issue. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide. Best regards
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1.2k
Sep ’25
How to combine Occlusion nodes with soft edges.
At a recent community meeting we were wondering how Apple creates this soft-edge effect around the occlusion cutouts. We see this effect on keyboard cutouts, iPhone cutouts, and in progressive spaces. An example: Notice the soft edged around the occlusion cutout for the keyboard One of our members created some Shader Graph materials to explore soft edges. These work by sending data into the opacity channel of the PreviewSurface node. Unfortunately, the Occlusion Surface nodes lack any sort of input. If you know how to blend these concepts with RealityKit Occlusion, please let us know!
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Sep ’25
WWDC 25 RemoteImmersiveSpace - Support for Passthrough Mode? RealityKit?
This is related to the WWDC presentation, What's new in Metal rendering for immersive apps.. Specifically, the macOS spatial streaming to visionOS feature: For reference: the page in the docs. The presentation demonstrates it using a full immersive space and Metal rendering using compositor services. I'd like clarity on a few things: Is the remote device wireless, or must the visionOS device be connected via a wired connected? Is there a limit to the number of remote devices, and if not, could macOS render different things per remote device simultaneously? Can I also use mixed mode with passthrough enabled, instead of just a fully-immersive mode? Can I use RealityKit instead of Metal? If so, may I have an example, or would someone point to an example?
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Sep ’25
Getting to MeshAnchor.MeshClassification from MeshAnchor?
I am working with MeshAnchors, and I am having troubles getting to the classification of the triangles/faces. This post references the MeshAnchor.Geometry, and that struct does have a property named "classifications", but it is of type GeometrySource. I cannot find any classification information in GeometrySource. Am I missing something there? I think I am looking for something of type MeshAnchor.MeshClassification, but I cannot find any structs with this as a property.
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1.3k
Feb ’25
LiDAR Projector Pattern iPhone 15 Pro vs. 12 Pro – Research Project Question
Dear Apple Team, I’m a high school student (vocational upper secondary school) working on my final research project about LiDAR sensors in smartphones, specifically Apple’s iPhone implementation. My current understanding (for context): I understand Apple’s LiDAR uses dToF with SPAD detectors: A VCSEL laser emits pulses, a DOE splits the beam into a dot pattern, and each spot’s return time is measured separately → point cloud generation. My specific questions: How many active projection dots does the LiDAR projector have in the iPhone 15 Pro vs. iPhone 12 Pro? Are the dots static or do they shift/move over time? How many depth measurement points does the system deliver internally (after processing)? What is the ranging accuracy (cm-level precision) of each measurement point? Experimental background: Using an IR night vision camera, I counted approximately 111 dots on the 15 Pro vs. 576 dots on the 12 Pro. Do these match the internal specifications? Photos of my measurements are available if helpful. Contact request: I would be very grateful if you could connect me with an Apple engineer or ARKit specialist who works with LiDAR technology. I would love to ask follow-up questions directly and would be happy to provide my contact details for this purpose. These specifications would be essential for my research paper. Thank you very much in advance! Best regards, Max! Vocational Upper Secondary School Hans-Leipelt-Schule Donauwörth Research Project: “LiDAR Sensor Technology in Smartphones”
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visionOS plane anchor rotation and wall direction are inconsistent
I have a problem with the wall plane detection using visionOS/ARKit: I am using ARKitSession's PlaneDetectionProvider detection.wall in the space of visionOS. I recorded the position and rotation information of the first detected plane, but found that the rotation value will be facing when the user starts the space. There is a deviation in different directions. That is to say, even if the plane is located on the same wall, the rotation quaternion will be different. I hope that no matter from which direction the user enters the scan, the real direction of the wall can be correctly obtained so that the virtual content can be accurately aligned with the wall. I have tried to use anchor.originFromAnchorTransform or Transform.rotation directly, but the rotation value is still affected by the user's initial orientation. In addition, I would like to know whether the user's initial orientation will affect the location information. If so, please provide a solution. Thank you!
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Sep ’25
Access UltraWideCamera when ARSession is running
ARSession provides video stream from the wide angle camera. If ARSession uses the ultra wide camera at the same time, ARSession may provide video stream from that camera, otherwise AVCaptureSession with an ultra wide camera should be allowed to launch. It would be very very useful if we can access different cameras while ARSession is running. We'd like to cooperate with you if possible. Steps to reproduce: run an AVCaptureSession and then run an ARSession. The AVCaptureSession stops.
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onWorldRecenter memory leak and duplicate callbacks in ImmersiveSpace
Posting this here in case this information is helpful to other developers: As of visionOS 26.3 beta 1, onWorldRecenter has two significant issues: (FB21557639) Memory Leak: When onWorldRecenter is assigned to a RealityView within an ImmersiveSpace, it appears to retain a strong reference to the view's internal SwiftUI context. When the immersive space is dismissed, the view's @State objects will not be deallocated. Also, each time the immersive space view's body is executed, additional state storage will be allocated and leaked. Multiple Callbacks: When the user long-presses the Digital Crown, the onWorldRecenter closure will be called multiple times, once for each past view body execution, including those of immersive space views that have been previously dismissed. Although these issues seem to be most prevalent when onWorldRecenter is used with an ImmersiveSpace, they may also occur in the context of a WindowGroup under certain circumstances. It's possible to work around this problem by moving onWorldRecenter to an empty overlay view within the app's primary WindowGroup and forwarding the world recenter events to ImmersiveSpace views through a notification system, coupled with a debouncer as an extra precaution.
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Building a custom render pipeline with RealityKit
Hello experts, and question seekers, I have been trying to get Gaussian splats working with RealityKit, however it seems not to work out for me. The library I use for Gaussian splatting: https://github.com/scier/MetalSplatter My idea was to use the renderers provided by RealityKit (aka RealityRenderer) https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/realityrenderer and the renderer provided by MetalSplatter (aka. SplatRenderer) https://github.com/scier/MetalSplatter/blob/main/MetalSplatter/Sources/SplatRenderer.swift Then with a custom render pipeline, I would be able to compose the outputs of the renderers, enabling the possibility, for example to build immersive scenery with realistic environment scans, as Gaussian splats, and RealityKit to provide the necessary features to build extra scenery around Gaussian splats, eg. dynamic 3D models inside Gaussian splats. However the problem is, as of now I am not able to do that with the current implementation of RealityRenderer. It seems to be, that first RealityRenderer is supposed to be an API, just to render colour information onto a texture, which in first glance might be useful, but misses important information, such as for example depth, and stencil information. Second issue is, even with that in mind, currently I am not able to execute RealityRenderer.updateAndRender, due to the following error messages: Could not resolve material name 'engine:BuiltinRenderGraphResources/Common/realityRendererBackground.rematerial' in bundle at '/Users//Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices//data/Containers/Bundle/Application//.app'. Loading via asset path. exiting spatial tracking service update thread because wait returned 37” I was able to build a custom Metal view with UIViewRepresentable, MTKView, and MTKViewDelegate, enabling me to build a custom rendering pipeline, by utilising some of the Metal developer workflows. Reference: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/metal-developer-workflows/ Inside draw(in view: MTKView), in a class derived by MTKViewDelegate: guard let currentDrawable = view.currentDrawable else { return } let realityRenderer = try! RealityRenderer() try! realityRenderer.updateAndRender(deltaTime: 0.0, cameraOutput: .init(.singleProjection(colorTexture: currentDrawable.texture)), whenScheduled: { realityRenderer in print("Rendering scheduled") }, onComplete: { RealityRenderer in print("Rendering completed") }) Can you please tell me, what I am doing wrong? Is there any solution, that enables me to use RealityKit with for example Gaussian splats? Any help is greatly appreciated. All the best, Ethem Kurt
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Feb ’25
How to Achieve Volumetric Lighting (Light Shafts) in RealityKit on visionOS?
Hello everyone, I am currently developing an experience for visionOS using RealityKit and I would like to achieve volumetric light effects, such as visible light rays or shafts through fog or dust. I found this GitHub project: https://github.com/robcupisz/LightShafts, which demonstrates the kind of visual style I am aiming for. I would like to know if there is a way to create similar effects using RealityKit on visionOS. So far, I have experimented with DirectionalLight, SpotLight, ImageBasedLight, and custom materials (e.g., additive blending on translucent meshes), but none of these approaches can replicate the volumetric light shaft look shown in the repository above. Questions: Is there a recommended technique or workaround in RealityKit to simulate light shafts or volumetric lighting? Is creating a custom mesh (e.g., cone or volume geometry with gradient alpha and additive blending) the only feasible method? Are there any examples, best practices, or sample projects from Apple or other developers that showcase a similar visual style? Any advice or hints would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
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Aug ’25