Facebook’s VR wing Oculus revealed its Passthrough API Experimental on Friday last week, which will allow developers to build and test apps to merge real and AR content via headsets and smartglasses.
The new API will launch with Oculus’ v31 SDK release, and will include several key features.
Updates on Passthrough API Experimental Build
According to the Menlo Park-based firm, users will be able to collaborate with remote coworkers and others with virtual monitors by using physical keyboards and desks.
The API will also help developers build games to interact with users’ real environments, such as zombie survival games in a living room.
Passthrough will also facilitate synchronising interactions with virtual and real content.
Further capabilities include techniques such as hole punching and alpha blending to composite Passthrough layers with other layers on the platform.
Developers can also apply numerous styles and colours to layers, feeds, posterising, rendering edges, and others, as well as create images on custom meshes rather than default mesh styles.
Unity developers will be able to access the Passthrough API Experimental after the v31 release, and the latter plans to provide expanded support for other platforms in the near future.
The new experimental API will debut on the Quest 2 for experience building and the production version is set for public access later in the year.
The news comes after Facebook unveiled its v31 rollout for select Oculus VR headsets along with new features such as its ‘Invite to App’ function and further security upgrades.
