Brandon Jones (Google) · w3.org

1. Introduction

Hardware that enables Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications are now broadly available to consumers, offering an immersive computing platform with both new opportunities and challenges. The ability to interact directly with immersive hardware is critical to ensuring that the web is well equipped to operate as a first-class citizen in this environment.

Immersive computing introduces strict requirements for high-precision, low-latency communication in order to deliver an acceptable experience. It also brings unique security concerns for a platform like the web. The WebXR Device API provides the interfaces necessary to enable developers to build compelling, comfortable, and safe immersive applications on the web across a wide variety of hardware form factors.

Other web interfaces, such as the RelativeOrientationSensor and AbsoluteOrientationSensor, can be repurposed to surface input from some devices to polyfill the WebXR Device API in limited situations. These interfaces cannot support multiple features of high-end immersive experiences, however, such as 6DoF tracking, presentation to headset peripherals, or tracked input devices.

1.1. Terminology

This document uses the acronym XR throughout to refer to the spectrum of hardware, applications, and techniques used for Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and other related technologies. Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • Head-mounted displays, whether they are opaque, transparent, or utilize video passthrough

  • Mobile devices with positional tracking

  • Fixed displays with head tracking capabilities

The important commonality between them being that they offer some degree of spatial tracking with which to simulate a view of virtual content.

Terms like "XR Device", "XR Application", etc. are generally understood to apply to any of the above. Portions of this document that only apply to a subset of these devices will indicate so as appropriate.

The terms 3DoF and 6DoF are used throughout this document to describe the tracking capabilities of XR devices.

  • A 3DoF device, short for "Three Degrees of Freedom", is one that can only track rotational movement. This is common in devices which rely exclusively on accelerometer and gyroscope readings to provide tracking. 3DoF devices do not respond translational movements from the user, though they may employ algorithms to estimate translational changes based on modeling of the neck or arms.

  • A 6DoF device, short for "Six Degrees of Freedom", is one that can track both rotation and translation, enabling for precise 1:1 tracking in space. This typically requires some level of understanding of the user’s environment. That environmental understanding may be achieved via inside-out tracking, where sensors on the tracked device itself (such as cameras or depth sensors) are used to determine the device’s position, or outside-in tracking, where external devices placed in the user’s environment (like a camera or light emitting device) provides a stable point of reference against which the XR device can determine it’s position.

1.2. Application flow

Most applications using the WebXR Device API will follow a similar usage pattern:

2. Model

2.1. XR device

An XR device is a physical unit of hardware that can present imagery to the user. On desktop clients, this is usually a headset peripheral. On mobile clients, it may represent the mobile device itself in conjunction with a viewer harness. It may also represent devices without stereo-presentation capabilities but with more advanced tracking.

An XR device has a list of supported modes (a list of strings) that contains the enumeration values of XRSessionMode that the XR device supports.

The user-agent MUST have an inline XR Device , which is an XR Device that MUST contain "inline" in its list of supported modes. The Inline XR Device will report as much pose information of the physical device the user agent is rendering to as possible. This device MAY be the same as the immersive XR device if one is present, but doesn’t have to be.

Note: On phones, the inline XR Device will report gyroscopic pose information of the phone itself. On desktops and laptops without gyroscopes, the inline XR Device will not be able to report a pose. In case the user agent is already running on an XR device, the inline XR device will be the same device, and may support multiple views.

3. Initialization

3.1. navigator.xr

 partial   interface   Navigator  {
  [ SecureContext ,  SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XR   xr ;
};

The xr attribute’s getter MUST return the XR object that is associated with the context object.

3.2. XR

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XR   :  EventTarget  {
  // Methods
   Promise < boolean >  isSessionSupported ( XRSessionMode    mode  );
  [ NewObject ]  Promise < XRSession >  requestSession ( XRSessionMode    mode  ,  optional   XRSessionInit    options   = {});
  // Events
   attribute   EventHandler   ondevicechange ;
};

The user agent MUST create an XR object when a Navigator object is created and associate it with that object.

An XR object is the entry point to the API, used to query for XR features available to the user agent and initiate communication with XR hardware via the creation of XRSessions.

An XR object has a list of immersive XR devices (a list of XR device), which MUST be initially an empty list.

An XR object has an immersive XR device (null or XR device) which is initially null and represents the active XR device from the list of immersive XR devices.

The user agent MUST be able to enumerate immersive XR devices attached to the system, at which time each available device is placed in the list of immersive XR devices. Subsequent algorithms requesting enumeration MUST reuse the cached list of immersive XR devices. Enumerating the devices should not initialize device tracking. After the first enumeration the user agent MUST begin monitoring device connection and disconnection, adding connected devices to the list of immersive XR devices and removing disconnected devices.

Each time the list of immersive XR devices changes the user agent should select an immersive XR device by running the following steps:

  1. Let oldDevice be the immersive XR device.

  2. If the list of immersive XR devices is an empty list, set the immersive XR device to null.

  3. If the list of immersive XR devices's size is one, set the immersive XR device to the list of immersive XR devices[0].

  4. Set the immersive XR device as follows:

    If there are any active XRSessions and the list of immersive XR devices contains oldDevice
    Set the immersive XR device to oldDevice
    Otherwise
    Set the immersive XR device to a device of the user agent’s choosing
  5. If this is the first time devices have been enumerated or oldDevice equals the immersive XR device, abort these steps.

  6. Shut down any active XRSessions.

  7. Set the XR compatible boolean of all WebGLRenderingContextBase instances to false.

  8. Queue a task to fire an event named devicechange on the context object.

Note: The user agent is allowed to use any criteria it wishes to select an immersive XR device when the list of immersive XR devices contains multiple devices. For example, the user agent may always select the first item in the list, or provide settings UI that allows users to manage device priority. Ideally the algorithm used to select the default device is stable and will result in the same device being selected across multiple browsing sessions.

The user agent ensures an immersive XR device is selected by running the following steps:

  1. If the context object's immersive XR device is not null, abort these steps.

  2. Enumerate immersive XR devices.

  3. Select an immersive XR device.

The ondevicechange attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the devicechange event type.

The isSessionSupported(mode) method queries if a given mode is supported by the user agent and device capabilities.

When this method is invoked, it MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let promise be a new Promise.

  2. If mode is "inline", resolve promise with true and return it.

  3. Run the following steps in parallel:

    1. If the requesting document’s origin is not allowed to use the "xr-spatial-tracking" feature policy, reject promise with a "SecurityError" DOMException and abort these steps.

    2. Ensure an immersive XR device is selected.

    3. If the immersive XR device is null, resolve promise with false and abort these steps.

    4. If the immersive XR device's list of supported modes does not contain mode, resolve promise with false and abort these steps.

    5. Resolve promise with true.

  4. Return promise.

Calling isSessionSupported() MUST NOT trigger device-selection UI as this would cause many sites to display XR-specific dialogs early in the document lifecycle without user activation. Additionally, calling isSessionSupported() MUST NOT interfere with any running XR applications on the system, and MUST NOT cause XR-related applications to launch such as system trays or storefronts.

The following code checks to see if immersive-vr sessions are supported.

navigator . xr . isSessionSupported (  'immersive-vr'  ). then (( supported )   =>   {
   if   ( supported )   {
     // 'immersive-vr' sessions are supported.
     // Page should advertise support to the user.
   }   else   {
     // 'immersive-vr' sessions are not supported.
   }
 }

The XR object has a pending immersive session boolean, which MUST be initially false, an active immersive session , which MUST be initially null, and a list of inline sessions , which MUST be initially empty.

The requestSession(mode, options) method attempts to initialize an XRSession for the given mode if possible, entering immersive mode if necessary.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let promise be a new Promise.

  2. Let immersive be true if mode is "immersive-vr", and false otherwise.

  3. Check whether the session request is allowed as follows:

    If immersive is true
    1. Check if an immersive session request is allowed, and if not reject promise with a "SecurityError" DOMException and return promise.

    2. If pending immersive session is true or active immersive session is not null, reject promise with an "InvalidStateError" DOMException and return promise.

    3. Set pending immersive session to true.

    Otherwise
    Check if an inline session request is allowed, and if not reject promise with a "SecurityError" DOMException and return promise.
  4. Run the following steps in parallel:

    1. Choose device as follows:

      If immersive is true
      1. Ensure an immersive XR device is selected.

      2. Set device to the immersive XR device.

      Otherwise
      Set device to the inline XR device.
    2. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

      1. If device is null or device’s list of supported modes does not contain mode, run the following steps:

        1. Reject promise with a "NotSupportedError" DOMException.

        2. If immersive is true, set pending immersive session to false.

        3. Abort these steps.

      2. Let session be a new XRSession object.

      3. Initialize the session with session, mode, and device.

      4. Resolve the requested features given by optionsrequiredFeatures and optionsoptionalFeatures values for session, and let resolved be the returned value.

      5. If resolved is false, run the following steps:

        1. Reject promise with a "NotSupportedError" DOMException.

        2. If immersive is true, set pending immersive session to false.

        3. Abort these steps.

      6. Potentially set the active immersive session as follows:

        If immersive is true
        Set the active immersive session to session, and set pending immersive session to false.
        Otherwise
        Append session to the list of inline sessions.
      7. Resolve promise with session.

  5. Return promise.

The following code attempts to retrieve an immersive-vr XRSession.

 let  xrSession ;
navigator . xr . requestSession (  "immersive-vr"  ). then (( session )   =>   {
  xrSession  =  session ;
 });

3.3. XRSessionMode

The XRSessionMode enum defines the modes that an XRSession can operate in.

 enum    XRSessionMode   {
   "inline" ,
   "immersive-vr" 
};
  • A session mode of inline indicates that the session’s output will be shown as an element in the HTML document. inline session content MUST be displayed in mono (i.e., with a single view). It MAY allow for viewer tracking. User agents MUST allow inline sessions to be created.

  • A session mode of immersive-vr indicates that the session’s output will be given exclusive access to the immersive XR device display and that content is not intended to be integrated with the user’s environment.

In this document, the term inline session is synonymous with an inline session and the term immersive session is synonymous with an immersive-vr session.

Immersive sessions MUST provide some level of viewer tracking, and content MUST be shown at the proper scale relative to the user and/or the surrounding environment. Additionally, Immersive sessions MUST be given exclusive access to the immersive XR device, meaning that while the immersive session is "visible" the HTML document is not shown on the immersive XR device's display, nor does content from any other source have exclusive access. Exclusive access does not prevent the user agent from overlaying its own UI, however this UI SHOULD be minimal.

Note: Future specifications or modules may expand the definition of immersive session include additional session modes.

Note: Examples of ways exclusive access may be presented include stereo content displayed on a virtual reality headset.

Note: As an example of overlaid UI, the user-agent or operating system in an immersive session may show notifications over the rendered content.

3.4. Feature Dependencies

Some features of an XRSession may not be universally available for a number of reasons, among which is the fact not all XR devices can support the full set of features. Another consideration is that some features expose sensitive information which may require a clear signal of user intent before functioning.

Since it is a poor user experience to initialize the underlying XR platform and create an XRSession only to immediately notify the user that the applications cannot function correctly, developers can indicate required features by passing an XRSessionInit dictionary to requestSession(). This will block the creation of the XRSession if any of the required features are unavailable due to device limitations or in the absence of a clear signal of user intent to expose sensitive information related to the feature.

Additionally, developers are encouraged to design experiences which progressively enhance their functionality when run one more capable devices. Optional features which the experience does not require but will take advantage of when available must also be indicated in an XRSessionInit dictionary to ensure that user intent can be determined before enabling the feature if necessary.

 dictionary    XRSessionInit   {
   sequence < any >  requiredFeatures ;
   sequence < any >  optionalFeatures ;
};

The requiredFeatures array contains any Required features for the experience. If any value in the list is not a recognized feature descriptor the XRSession will not be created. If any feature listed in the requiredFeatures array is not supported by the XR Device or, if necessary, has not received a clear signal of user intent the XRSession will not be created.

The optionalFeatures array contains any Optional features for the experience. If any value in the list is not a recognized feature descriptor it will be ignored. Features listed in the optionalFeatures array will be enabled if supported by the XR Device and, if necessary, given a clear signal of user intent, but will not block creation of the XRSession if absent.

Values given in the feature lists are considered a valid feature descriptor if the value is one of the following:

Future iterations of this specification and additional modules may expand the list of accepted feature descriptors.

Note: Features are accepted as an array of any values to ensure forwards compatibility. It allows unrecognized optional values to be properly ignored as new feature descriptor types are added.

Depending on the XRSessionMode requested, certain feature descriptors are added to the requiredFeatures or optionalFeatures lists by default. The following table describes the default features associated with each session type and feature list:

Feature Sessions List
"viewer" Inline sessions and immersive sessions requiredFeatures
"local" Immersive sessions requiredFeatures

The combined list of feature descriptors given by the requiredFeatures and optionalFeatures are collectively considered the requested features for an XRSession.

Some feature descriptors, when present in the requested features list, are subject to feature policy and/or requirements that user intent to use the feature is well understood, via either explicit consent or implicit consent. The following table describes the feature requirements that must be satisfied prior to being enabled:

Feature Feature Policy Required Consent Required
"local" "xr-spatial-tracking" Inline sessions require consent
"local-floor" "xr-spatial-tracking" Always requires consent
"bounded-floor" "xr-spatial-tracking" Always requires consent
"unbounded" "xr-spatial-tracking" Always requires consent

Note: "local" is always included in the requested features of immersive sessions as a default feature, and as such immersive sessions always need to obtain explicit consent or implicit consent.

Requested features can only be enabled for a session if the XR Device is capable of supporting the feature, which means that the feature is known to be supported by the XR Device in some configurations, even if the current configuration has not yet been verified as supporting the feature. The user agent MAY apply more rigorous constraints if desired in order to yield a more consistent user experience.

Note: For example, several VR devices support either configuring a safe boundary for the user to move around within or skipping boundary configuration and operating in a mode where the user is expected to stand in place. Such a device can be considered to be capable of supporting "bounded-floor" XRReferenceSpaces even if they are currently not configured with safety boundaries, because it’s expected that the user could configure the device appropriately if the experience required it. This is to allow user agents to avoid fully initializing the XR Device or waiting for the user’s environment to be recognized prior to resolving the requested features if desired. If, however, the user agent knows that the boundary state at the time the session is requested without additional initialization it may choose to reject the "bounded-floor" feature if the safety boundary not already configured.

To resolve the requested features given requiredFeatures and optionalFeatures for an XRSession session, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let consentRequired be an empty list of DOMString.

  2. Let consentOptional be an empty list of DOMString.

  3. Add every feature descriptor in the default features table associated with session’s mode to the indicated feature list if it is not already present.

  4. For each feature in requiredFeatures perform the following steps:

    1. If feature is not a valid feature descriptor, return false.

    2. If the requesting document’s origin is not allowed to use any feature policy required by feature as indicated by the feature requirements table, return false.

    3. If session’s XR Device is not capable of supporting the functionality described by feature or the user agent has otherwise determined to reject the feature, return false.

    4. If the functionality described by feature requires explicit consent, append it to consentRequired.

    5. Else append feature to session’s list of enabled features.

  5. For each feature in optionalFeatures perform the following steps:

    1. If feature is not a valid feature descriptor, continue to the next entry.

    2. If the requesting document’s origin is not allowed to use any feature policy required by feature as indicated by the feature requirements table, continue to the next entry.

    3. If session’s XR Device is not capable of supporting the functionality described by feature or the user agent has otherwise determined to reject the feature, continue to the next entry.

    4. If the functionality described by feature requires explicit consent, append it to consentOptional.

    5. Else append feature to session’s list of enabled features.

  6. If consentRequired or consentOptional are not empty, request explicit consent to use the functionality described by those features.

  7. For each feature in consentRequired perform the following steps:

    1. If a clear signal of user intent to enable feature has not been given, return false.

    2. Else append feature to session’s list of enabled features.

  8. For each feature in consentOptional perform the following steps:

    1. If a clear signal of user intent to enable feature has not been given, continue to the next entry.

    2. Else append feature to session’s list of enabled features.

  9. Return true

4. Session

4.1. XRSession

Any interaction with XR hardware is done via an XRSession object, which can only be retrieved by calling requestSession() on the XR object. Once a session has been successfully acquired, it can be used to poll the viewer pose, query information about the user’s environment, and present imagery to the user.

The user agent, when possible, SHOULD NOT initialize device tracking or rendering capabilities until an XRSession has been acquired. This is to prevent unwanted side effects of engaging the XR systems when they’re not actively being used, such as increased battery usage or related utility applications from appearing when first navigating to a page that only wants to test for the presence of XR hardware in order to advertise XR features. Not all XR platforms offer ways to detect the hardware’s presence without initializing tracking, however, so this is only a strong recommendation.

 enum    XRVisibilityState   {
   "visible" ,
   "visible-blurred" ,
   "hidden" ,
};
[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRSession   :  EventTarget  {
  // Attributes
   readonly   attribute   XRVisibilityState   visibilityState ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRRenderState   renderState ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRInputSourceArray   inputSources ;
  // Methods
   void   updateRenderState ( optional   XRRenderStateInit    state   = {});
  [ NewObject ]  Promise < XRReferenceSpace >  requestReferenceSpace ( XRReferenceSpaceType    type  );
   long   requestAnimationFrame ( XRFrameRequestCallback    callback  );
   void   cancelAnimationFrame ( long    handle  );
   Promise < void >  end ();
  // Events
   attribute   EventHandler   onend ;
   attribute   EventHandler   onselect ;
   attribute   EventHandler   oninputsourceschange ;
   attribute   EventHandler   onselectstart ;
   attribute   EventHandler   onselectend ;
   attribute   EventHandler   onvisibilitychange ;
};

Each XRSession has a mode , which is one of the values of XRSessionMode.

To initialize the session , given session, mode, and device, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Set session’s mode to mode.

  2. Set session’s XR device to device.

  3. Initialize the render state.

  4. If no other features of the user agent have done so already, perform the necessary platform-specific steps to initialize the device’s tracking and rendering capabilities, including showing any necessary instructions to the user.

Note: Some devices require additional user instructions for activation. For example, going into immersive mode on a phone-based headset device requires inserting the phone into the headset, and doing so on a desktop browser connected to an external headset requires wearing the headset. It is the responsibility of the user agent — not the author — to ensure any such instructions are shown.

A number of different circumstances may shut down the session , which is permanent and irreversible. Once a session has been shut down the only way to access the XR device's tracking or rendering capabilities again is to request a new session. Each XRSession has an ended boolean, initially set to false, that indicates if it has been shut down.

When an XRSession is shut down the following steps are run:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession object.

  2. Set session’s ended value to true.

  3. If the active immersive session is equal to session, set the active immersive session to null.

  4. Remove session from the list of inline sessions.

  5. Reject any outstanding promises returned by session with an InvalidStateError, except for any promises returned by end().

  6. If no other features of the user agent are actively using them, perform the necessary platform-specific steps to shut down the device’s tracking and rendering capabilities. This MUST include:

  7. Queue a task that fires an XRSessionEvent named end on session.

The end() method provides a way to manually shut down a session. When invoked, it MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let promise be a new Promise.

  2. Shut down the target XRSession object.

  3. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Wait until any platform-specific steps related to shutting down the session have completed.

    2. Resolve promise.

  4. Return promise.

Each XRSession has a list of enabled features , which is a list of feature descriptors which MUST be initially an empty list

Each XRSession has an active render state which is a new XRRenderState, and a pending render state , which is an XRRenderState which is initially null.

The renderState attribute returns the XRSession's active render state.

Each XRSession has a minimum inline field of view and a maximum inline field of view , defined in radians. The values MUST be determined by the user agent and MUST fall in the range of 0 to PI.

Each XRSession has a minimum near clip plane and a maximum far clip plane , defined in meters. The values MUST be determined by the user agent and MUST be non-negative. The minimum near clip plane SHOULD be less than 0.1. The maximum far clip plane SHOULD be greater than 1000.0 (and MAY be infinite).

The updateRenderState(newState) method queues an update to the active render state to be applied on the next frame. Unset fields of the XRRenderStateInit newState passed to this method will not be changed.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession.

  2. If session’s ended value is true, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  3. If newState’s baseLayer's was created with an XRSession other than session, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  4. If newState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView is set and session is an immersive session, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  5. Let activeState be session’s active render state.

  6. If session’s pending render state is null, set it to a copy of activeState.

  7. If newState’s depthNear value is set, set session’s pending render state's depthNear to newState’s depthNear.

  8. If newState’s depthFar value is set, set session’s pending render state's depthFar to newState’s depthFar.

  9. If newState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView is set, set session’s pending render state's inlineVerticalFieldOfView to newState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView.

  10. If newState’s baseLayer is set, set session’s pending render state's baseLayer to newState’s baseLayer.

When requested, the XRSession MUST apply the pending render state by running the following steps:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession.

  2. Let activeState be session’s active render state.

  3. Let newState be session’s pending render state.

  4. Set session’s pending render state to null.

  5. Set activeState to newState.

  6. If activeState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView is less than session’s minimum inline field of view set activeState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView to session’s minimum inline field of view.

  7. If activeState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView is greater than session’s maximum inline field of view set activeState’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView to session’s maximum inline field of view.

  8. If activeState’s depthNear is less than session’s minimum near clip plane set activeState’s depthNear to session’s minimum near clip plane.

  9. If activeState’s depthFar is less than session’s maximum far clip plane set activeState’s depthFar to session’s maximum far clip plane.

  10. Let baseLayer be activeState’s baseLayer.

  11. Set activeState’s composition disabled and output canvas as follows:

    If session’s mode is "inline" and baseLayer is an instance of an XRWebGLLayer with composition disabled set to true
    Set activeState’s composition disabled boolean to true.
    Set activeState’s output canvas to baseLayer’s context's canvas.
    Otherwise
    Set activeState’s composition disabled boolean to false.
    Set activeState’s output canvas to null.

The requestReferenceSpace(type) method constructs a new XRReferenceSpace of a given type, if possible.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let promise be a new Promise.

  2. Run the following steps in parallel:

    1. Create a reference space, referenceSpace, with the XRReferenceSpaceType type.

    2. If referenceSpace is null, reject promise with a NotSupportedError and abort these steps.

    3. Resolve promise with referenceSpace.

  3. Return promise.

Each XRSession has a list of active XR input sources (a list of XRInputSource) which MUST be initially an empty list.

Each XRSession has an XR device , which is an XR device set at initialization.

The inputSources attribute returns the XRSession's list of active XR input sources.

The user agent MUST monitor any XR input sources associated with the XR Device, including detecting when XR input sources are added, removed, or changed.

When new XR input sources become available for XRSession session, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let added be a new list.

  2. For each new XR input source:

    1. Let inputSource be a new XRInputSource.

    2. Add inputSource to added.

  3. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Extend session’s list of active XR input sources with added.

    2. Fire an XRInputSourcesChangeEvent named inputsourceschange on session with added set to added.

When any previously added XR input sources are no longer available for XRSession session, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let removed be a new list.

  2. For each XR input source that is no longer available:

    1. Let inputSource be the XRInputSource in session’s list of active XR input sources associated with the XR input source.

    2. Add inputSource to removed.

  3. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Remove each XRInputSource in removed from session’s list of active XR input sources.

    2. Fire an XRInputSourcesChangeEvent named inputsourceschange on session with removed set to removed.

When the handedness, targetRayMode, profiles, or presence of a gripSpace for any XR input sources change for XRSession session, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let added be a new list.

  2. Let removed be a new list.

  3. For each changed XR input source:

    1. Let oldInputSource be the XRInputSource in session’s list of active XR input sources previously associated with the XR input source.

    2. Let newInputSource be a new XRInputSource.

    3. Add oldInputSource to removed.

    4. Add newInputSource to added.

  4. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Remove each XRInputSource in removed from session’s list of active XR input sources.

    2. Extend session’s list of active XR input sources with added.

    3. Fire an XRInputSourcesChangeEvent named inputsourceschange on session withadded set to added and removed set to removed.

Each XRSession has a visibility state value, which is an enum which MUST be set to whichever of the following values best matches the state of session.

The visibilityState attribute returns the XRSession's visibility state. The onvisibilitychange attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the visibilitychange event type.

The visibility state MAY be changed by the user agent at any time other than during the processing of an XR animation frame, and the user agent SHOULD monitor the XR platform when possible to observe when session visibility has been affected external to the user agent and update the visibility state accordingly.

Note: The XRSession's visibility state does not necessarily imply the visibility of the HTML document. Depending on the system configuration the page may continue to be visible while an immersive session is active. (For example, a headset connected to a PC may continue to display the page on the monitor while the headset is viewing content from an immersive session.) Developers should continue to rely on the [Page Visibility API](https://w3c.github.io/page-visibility/) to determine page visibility.

Each XRSession has a viewer reference space , which is an XRReferenceSpace of type "viewer" with an identity transform origin offset. The viewer reference space has a list of views , which is a list of views corresponding to the views provided by the XR device. If the XRSession's renderState's composition disabled boolean is set to true the list of views MUST contain a single view.

The onend attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the end event type.

The oninputsourceschange attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the inputsourceschange event type.

The onselectstart attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the selectstart event type.

The onselectend attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the selectend event type.

The onselect attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the select event type.

4.2. XRRenderState

An XRRenderState represents a set of configurable values which affect how an XRSession's output is composited. The active render state for a given XRSession can only change between frame boundaries, and updates can be queued up via updateRenderState().

 dictionary    XRRenderStateInit   {
   double    depthNear  ;
   double    depthFar  ;
   double    inlineVerticalFieldOfView  ;
   XRWebGLLayer ?   baseLayer  ;
};
[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRRenderState   {
   readonly   attribute   double   depthNear ;
   readonly   attribute   double   depthFar ;
   readonly   attribute   double ?  inlineVerticalFieldOfView ;
   readonly   attribute   XRWebGLLayer ?  baseLayer ;
};

Each XRRenderState has a output canvas , which is an HTMLCanvasElement initially set to null. The output canvas is the DOM element that will display any content rendered for an "inline" XRSession.

Each XRRenderState also has composition disabled boolean, which is initially false. The XRRenderState is considered to be have composition disabled if rendering commands performed for an "inline" XRSession are executed in such a way that they are directly displayed into output canvas, rather than first being processed by the XR Compositor.

Note: At this point the XRRenderState will only have an output canvas if it has composition disabled, but future versions of the specification are likely to introduce methods for setting output canvas' that support more advanced uses like mirroring and layer compositing that will require composition.

When an XRRenderState object is created for an XRSession session, the user agent MUST initialize the render state by running the following steps:

  1. Let state be the newly created XRRenderState object.

  2. Initialize state’s depthNear to 0.1.

  3. Initialize state’s depthFar to 1000.0.

  4. Initialize state’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView as follows:

    If session is an inline session
    Initialize state’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView to PI * 0.5.
    Else
    Initialize state’s inlineVerticalFieldOfView to null.
  5. Initialize state’s baseLayer to null.

The depthNear attribute defines the distance, in meters, of the near clip plane from the viewer. The depthFar attribute defines the distance, in meters, of the far clip plane from the viewer.

depthNear and depthFar is used in the computation of the projectionMatrix of XRViews and determines how the values of an XRWebGLLayer depth buffer are interpreted. depthNear MAY be greater than depthFar.

The inlineVerticalFieldOfView attribute defines the default vertical field of view in radians used when computing projection matrices for "inline" XRSessions. The projection matrix calculation also takes into account the aspect ratio of the output canvas. This value MUST be null for immersive sessions.

The baseLayer attribute defines an XRWebGLLayer which the XR compositor will obtain images from.

4.3. Animation Frames

The primary way an XRSession provides information about the tracking state of the XR device is via callbacks scheduled by calling requestAnimationFrame() on the XRSession instance.

 callback    XRFrameRequestCallback   =  void  ( DOMHighResTimeStamp    time  ,  XRFrame    frame  );

Each XRFrameRequestCallback object has a cancelled boolean initially set to false.

Each XRSession has a list of animation frame callbacks , which is initially empty, and an animation frame callback identifier , which is a number initially be zero.

The requestAnimationFrame(callback) method queues up callback for being run the next time the user agent wishes to run an animation frame for the device.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession object.

  2. Increment session’s animation frame callback identifier by one.

  3. Append callback to session’s list of animation frame callbacks, associated with session’s animation frame callback identifier’s current value.

  4. Return session’s animation frame callback identifier’s current value.

The cancelAnimationFrame(handle) method cancels an existing animation frame callback given its animation frame callback identifier handle.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession object.

  2. Find the entry in session’s list of animation frame callbacks that is associated with the value handle.

  3. If there is such an entry, set it’s cancelled boolean to true and remove it from session’s list of animation frame callbacks.

When an XRSession session receives updated viewer state from the XR device, it runs an XR animation frame with a timestamp now and an XRFrame frame, which MUST run the following steps regardless of if the list of animation frame callbacks is empty or not:

  1. If session’s pending render state is not null, apply the pending render state.

  2. If session’s renderState's baseLayer is null, abort these steps.

  3. If session’s mode is "inline" and session’s renderState's output canvas is null, abort these steps.

  4. Let callbacks be a list of the entries in session’s list of animation frame callback, in the order in which they were added to the list.

  5. Set session’s list of animation frame callbacks to the empty list.

  6. Set frame’s active boolean to true.

  7. Set frame’s animationFrame boolean to true.

  8. For each entry in callbacks, in order:

    1. If the entry’s cancelled boolean is true, continue to the next entry.

    2. Invoke the Web IDL callback function, passing now and frame as the arguments

    3. If an exception is thrown, report the exception.

  9. Set frame’s active boolean to false.

Depending on the device being used, callbacks supplied to Window requestAnimationFrame() may not be processed while an immersive session is active. For instance, on a mobile or standalone device where the immersive content completely obscures the HTML document. As such, developers must not rely on Window requestAnimationFrame() callbacks to schedule XRSession requestAnimationFrame() callbacks and visa-versa, even if they share the same rendering logic. Applications that do not follow this guidance may not execute properly on all platforms. A more effective pattern for applications that wish to transition between these two types of animation loops is demonstrated below:

 let  xrSession  =   null  ;
 function  onWindowAnimationFrame ( time )   {
  window . requestAnimationFrame ( onWindowAnimationFrame );
   // This may be called while an immersive session is running on some devices,
   // such as a desktop with a tethered headset. To prevent two loops from
   // rendering in parallel, skip drawing in this one until the session ends.
   if   (  ! xrSession )   {
    renderFrame ( time ,   null  );
   }
 }
 // The window animation loop can be started immediately upon the page loading.
window . requestAnimationFrame ( onWindowAnimationFrame );
 function  onXRAnimationFrame ( time ,  xrFrame )   {
  xrSession . requestAnimationFrame ( onXRAnimationFrame );
  renderFrame ( time ,  xrFrame );
 }
 function  renderFrame ( time ,  xrFrame )   {
   // Shared rendering logic.
 }
 // Assumed to be called by a user gesture event elsewhere in code.
 function  startXRSession ()   {
  navigator . xr . requestSession (  'immersive-vr'  ). then (( session )   =>   {
    xrSession  =  session ;
    xrSession . addEventListener (  'end'  ,  onXRSessionEnded );
     // Do necessary session setup here.
     // Begin the session’s animation loop.
    xrSession . requestAnimationFrame ( onXRAnimationFrame );
   });
 }
 function  onXRSessionEnded ()   {
  xrSession  =   null  ;
 }

Applications which use "inline" sessions for rendering to the HTML document do not need to take any special steps to coordinate the animation loops, since the user agent will automatically suspend the animation loops of any "inline" sessions while an immersive session is active.

4.4. The XR Compositor

The user agent MUST maintain an XR Compositor which handles presentation to the XR device and frame timing. The compositor MUST use an independent rendering context whose state is isolated from that of any graphics contexts created by the document. The compositor MUST prevent the page from corrupting the compositor state or reading back content from other pages or applications. The compositor MUST also run in separate thread or processes to decouple performance of the page from the ability to present new imagery to the user at the appropriate framerate. The compositor MAY composite additional device or user agent UI over rendered content, like device menus.

Note: Future extensions to this spec may utilize the compositor to composite multiple layers coming from the same page as well.

5. Frame Loop

5.1. XRFrame

An XRFrame represents a snapshot of the state of all of the tracked objects for an XRSession. Applications can acquire an XRFrame by calling requestAnimationFrame() on an XRSession with an XRFrameRequestCallback. When the callback is called it will be passed an XRFrame. Events which need to communicate tracking state, such as the select event, will also provide an XRFrame.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRFrame   {
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRSession   session ;
   XRViewerPose ?  getViewerPose ( XRReferenceSpace    referenceSpace  );
   XRPose ?  getPose ( XRSpace    space  ,  XRSpace    baseSpace  );
};

Each XRFrame has an active boolean which is initially set to false, and an animationFrame boolean which is initially set to false.

The session attribute returns the XRSession that produced the XRFrame.

The getViewerPose(referenceSpace) method provides the pose of the viewer relative to referenceSpace as an XRViewerPose, at the time represented by the XRFrame.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be the target XRFrame

  2. Let session be frame’s session object.

  3. If frame’s animationFrame boolean is false, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  4. Let pose be a new XRViewerPose object.

  5. Populate the pose of session’s viewer reference space in referenceSpace at the time represented by frame into pose.

  6. If pose is null return null.

  7. Let xrviews be an empty list.

  8. For each view view in the list of views on theviewer reference space of session, perform the following steps:

    1. Let xrview be a new XRView object.

    2. Initialize xrview’s underlying view to view.

    3. Initialize xrview’s eye to view’s eye.

    4. Initialize xrview’s frame to frame.

    5. Let offset be an XRRigidTransform equal to the view offset of view

    6. Set xrview’s transform property to the result of multiplying the XRViewerPose's transform by the offset transform

    7. Append xrview to xrviews

  9. Set pose’s views to xrviews

  10. Return pose.

The getPose(space, baseSpace) method provides the pose of space relative to baseSpace as an XRPose, at the time represented by the XRFrame.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be the target XRFrame

  2. Let pose be a new XRPose object.

  3. Populate the pose of space in baseSpace at the time represented by frame into pose.

  4. Return pose.

6. Spaces

A core feature of the WebXR Device API is the ability to provide spatial tracking. Spaces are the interface that enable applications to reason about how tracked entities are spatially related to the user’s physical environment and each other.

6.1. XRSpace

An XRSpace represents a virtual coordinate system with an origin that corresponds to a physical location. Spatial data that is requested from the API or given to the API is always expressed in relation to a specific XRSpace at the time of a specific XRFrame. Numeric values such as pose positions are coordinates in that space relative to its origin. The interface is intentionally opaque.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRSpace   :  EventTarget  {
};

Each XRSpace has a session which is set to the XRSession that created the XRSpace.

Each XRSpace has a native origin that is tracked by the XR device's underlying tracking system, and an effective origin , which is the basis of the XRSpace's coordinate system . The transform from the effective space to the native origin's space is defined by an origin offset , which is an XRRigidTransform initially set to an identity transform.

The effective origin of an XRSpace can only be observed in the coordinate system of another XRSpace as an XRPose, returned by an XRFrame's getPose() method. The spatial relationship between XRSpaces MAY change between XRFrames.

To populate the pose of an XRSpace space in an XRSpace baseSpace at the time represented by an XRFrame frame into an XRPose pose, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. If frame’s active boolean is false, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  2. Let session be frame’s session object.

  3. If space’s session does not equal session, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  4. If baseSpace’s session does not equal session, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  5. Check if poses may be reported and, if not, throw a SecurityError and abort these steps.

  6. Let limit be the result of whether poses must be limited between space and baseSpace.

  7. Let transform be pose’s transform.

  8. Query the XR device's tracking system for space’s pose relative to baseSpace at the time represented by frame, then perform the following steps:

    If limit is false and the tracking system provides a 6DoF pose whose position is actively tracked or statically known for space’s pose relative to baseSpace:
    Set transform’s orientation to the orientation of space’s effective origin in baseSpace’s coordinate system.
    Set transform’s position to the position of space’s effective origin in baseSpace’s coordinate system.
    Set pose’s emulatedPosition to false.
    Else if limit is false and the tracking system provides a 3DoF pose or a 6DoF pose whose position is neither actively tracked nor statically known for space’s pose relative to baseSpace:
    Set transform’s orientation to the orientation of space’s effective origin in baseSpace’s coordinate system.
    Set transform’s position to the tracking system’s best estimate of the position of space’s effective origin in baseSpace’s coordinate system. This MAY include a computed offset such as a neck or arm model. If a position estimate is not available, the last known position MUST be used.
    Set pose’s emulatedPosition to true.
    Else if space’s pose relative to baseSpace has been determined in the past:
    Set transform’s position to the last known position of space’s effective origin in baseSpace’s coordinate system.
    Set transform’s orientation to the last known orientation of space’s effective origin in baseSpace’s coordinate system.
    Set pose’s emulatedPosition boolean to true.
    Else if space’s pose relative to baseSpace has never been determined:
    Set pose to null.

Note: The XRPose's emulatedPosition boolean does not indicate whether baseSpace’s position is emulated or not, only whether evaluating space’s position relative to baseSpace relies on emulation. For example, a controller with 3DoF tracking would report poses with an emulatedPosition of true when its targetRaySpace or gripSpace are queried against an XRReferenceSpace, but would report an emulatedPosition of false if the pose of the targetRaySpace was queried in gripSpace, because the relationship between those two spaces should be known exactly.

6.2. XRReferenceSpace

An XRReferenceSpace is one of several common XRSpaces that applications can use to establish a spatial relationship with the user’s physical environment.

XRReferenceSpaces are generally expected to remain static for the duration of the XRSession, with the most common exception being mid-session reconfiguration by the user. The native origin for every XRReferenceSpace describes a coordinate system where +X is considered "Right", +Y is considered "Up", and -Z is considered "Forward".

 enum    XRReferenceSpaceType   {
   "viewer" ,
   "local" ,
   "local-floor" ,
   "bounded-floor" ,
   "unbounded" 
};
[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]
 interface    XRReferenceSpace   :  XRSpace  {
  [ NewObject ]  XRReferenceSpace   getOffsetReferenceSpace ( XRRigidTransform    originOffset  );
   attribute   EventHandler   onreset ;
};

Each XRReferenceSpace has a type , which is an XRReferenceSpaceType.

An XRReferenceSpace is most frequently obtained by calling requestReferenceSpace(), which creates an instance of an XRReferenceSpace or an interface extending it, determined by the XRReferenceSpaceType enum value passed into the call. The type indicates the tracking behavior that the reference space will exhibit:

  • Passing a type of viewer creates an XRReferenceSpace instance. It represents a tracking space with a native origin which tracks the position and orientation of the viewer. Every XRSession MUST support "viewer" XRReferenceSpaces.

  • Passing a type of local creates an XRReferenceSpace instance. It represents a tracking space with a native origin near the viewer at the time of creation. The exact position and orientation will be initialized based on the conventions of the underlying platform. When using this reference space the user is not expected to move beyond their initial position much, if at all, and tracking is optimized for that purpose. For devices with 6DoF tracking, local reference spaces should emphasize keeping the origin stable relative to the user’s environment.

  • Passing a type of local-floor creates an XRReferenceSpace instance. It represents a tracking space with a native origin at the floor in a safe position for the user to stand. The y axis equals 0 at floor level, with the x and z position and orientation initialized based on the conventions of the underlying platform. If the floor level isn’t known it MUST be estimated. If the estimated floor level is determined with a non-default value, it MUST be rounded sufficiently to prevent fingerprinting. When using this reference space the user is not expected to move beyond their initial position much, if at all, and tracking is optimized for that purpose. For devices with 6DoF tracking, local-floor reference spaces should emphasize keeping the origin stable relative to the user’s environment.

    Note: If the floor level of a "local-floor" reference space is adjusted to prevent fingerprinting, rounded to the nearest 1cm is suggested.

  • Passing a type of bounded-floor creates an XRBoundedReferenceSpace instance if supported by the XR device and the XRSession. It represents a tracking space with it’s native origin at the floor, where the user is expected to move within a pre-established boundary, given as the boundsGeometry. Tracking in a bounded-floor reference space is optimized for keeping the native origin and boundsGeometry stable relative to the user’s environment.

  • Passing a type of unbounded creates an XRReferenceSpace instance if supported by the XR device and the XRSession. It represents a tracking space where the user is expected to move freely around their environment, potentially even long distances from their starting point. Tracking in an unbounded reference space is optimized for stability around the user’s current position, and as such the native origin may drift over time.

Devices that support "local" reference spaces MUST support "local-floor" reference spaces, through emulation if necessary, and vice versa.

The onreset attribute is an Event handler IDL attribute for the reset event type.

When an XRReferenceSpace is requested, the user agent MUST create a reference space by running the following steps:

  1. Let session be the XRSession object that requested creation of a reference space.

  2. Let type be set to the XRReferenceSpaceType passed to requestReferenceSpace().

  3. If the reference space is supported for type and session, run the following steps:

    1. Initialize referenceSpace as follows:

      If type is bounded-floor
      Let referenceSpace be a new XRBoundedReferenceSpace.
      Otherwise
      Let referenceSpace be a new XRReferenceSpace.
    2. Initialize referenceSpace’s type to type.

    3. Initialize referenceSpace’s session to session.

    4. Return referenceSpace

  4. Return null.

To check if a reference space is supported for a given reference space type type and XRSession session, run the following steps:

  1. If type is not contained in session’s list of enabled features return false.

  2. If type is viewer, return true.

  3. If type is local or local-floor, and session is an immersive session, return true.

  4. If type is local or local-floor, and the XR device supports reporting orientation data, return true.

  5. If type is bounded-floor and session is an immersive session, return the result of whether bounded reference spaces are supported by the XR device.

  6. If type is unbounded, session is an immersive session, and the XR device supports stable tracking near the user over an unlimited distance, return true.

  7. Return false.

The getOffsetReferenceSpace(originOffset) method MUST perform the following steps when invoked:

  1. Let base be the XRReferenceSpace the method was called on.

  2. Initialize offsetSpace as follows:

    If base is an instance of XRBoundedReferenceSpace
    Let offsetSpace be a new XRBoundedReferenceSpace and set offsetSpace’s boundsGeometry to base’s boundsGeometry, with each point multiplied by the inverse of originOffset.
    Else
    Let offsetSpace be a new XRReferenceSpace.
  3. Set offsetSpace’s native origin to base’s native origin.

  4. Set offsetSpace’s origin offset to the result of multiplying base’s origin offset by originOffset.

  5. Return offsetSpace.

Note: It’s expected that some applications will use getOffsetReferenceSpace() to implement scene navigation controls based on mouse, keyboard, touch, or gamepad input. This will result in getOffsetReferenceSpace() being called frequently, at least once per-frame during periods of active input. As a result UAs are strongly encouraged to make the creation of new XRReferenceSpaces with getOffsetReferenceSpace() a lightweight operation.

6.3. XRBoundedReferenceSpace

XRBoundedReferenceSpace extends XRReferenceSpace to include boundsGeometry, indicating the pre-configured boundaries of the users space.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]
 interface    XRBoundedReferenceSpace   :  XRReferenceSpace  {
   readonly   attribute   FrozenArray < DOMPointReadOnly >  boundsGeometry ;
};

The origin of an XRBoundedReferenceSpace MUST be positioned at the floor, such that the y axis equals 0 at floor level. The x and z position and orientation are initialized based on the conventions of the underlying platform, typically expected to be near the center of the room facing in a logical forward direction.

Note: Other XR platforms sometimes refer to the type of tracking offered by a bounded-floor reference space as "room scale" tracking. An XRBoundedReferenceSpace is not intended to describe multi-room spaces, areas with uneven floor levels, or very large open areas. Content that needs to handle those scenarios should use an unbounded reference space.

Each XRBoundedReferenceSpace has a native bounds geometry describing the border around the XRBoundedReferenceSpace, which the user can expect to safely move within. The polygonal boundary is given as an array of DOMPointReadOnlys, which represents a loop of points at the edges of the safe space. The points describe offsets from the native origin in meters. Points MUST be given in a clockwise order as viewed from above, looking towards the negative end of the Y axis. The y value of each point MUST be 0 and the w value of each point MUST be 1. The bounds can be considered to originate at the floor and extend infinitely high. The shape it describes MAY be convex or concave.

Each point in the native bounds geometry MUST be limited to a reasonable distance from the reference space’s native origin.

Note: It is suggested that points of the native bounds geometry be limited to 15 meters from the native origin in all directions.

Each point in the native bounds geometry MUST also be quantized sufficiently to prevent fingerprinting. For user’s safety, quantized points values MUST NOT fall outside the bounds reported by the platform.

Note: It is suggested that points of the native bounds geometry be quantized to the nearest 5cm.

The boundsGeometry attribute is an array of DOMPointReadOnlys such that each entry is equal to the entry in the XRBoundedReferenceSpace's native bounds geometry premultiplied by the inverse of the origin offset. In other words, it provides the same border in XRBoundedReferenceSpace coordinates relative to the effective origin.

To check if bounded reference spaces are supported run the following steps:

  1. If the XR device cannot report boundaries, return false.

  2. If the XR device cannot identify the height of the user’s physical floor, return false.

  3. Return true.

Note: Content should not require the user to move beyond the boundsGeometry. It is possible for the user to move beyond the bounds if their physical surroundings allow for it, resulting in position values outside of the polygon they describe. This is not an error condition and should be handled gracefully by page content.

Note: Content generally should not provide a visualization of the boundsGeometry, as it’s the user agent’s responsibility to ensure that safety critical information is provided to the user.

7. Views

7.1. XRView

An XRView describes a single view into an XR scene for a given frame.

Each view corresponds to a display or portion of a display used by an XR device to present imagery to the user. They are used to retrieve all the information necessary to render content that is well aligned to the view's physical output properties, including the field of view, eye offset, and other optical properties. Views may cover overlapping regions of the user’s vision. No guarantee is made about the number of views any XR device uses or their order, nor is the number of views required to be constant for the duration of an XRSession.

A view has an associated internal view offset , which is an XRRigidTransform describing the position and orientation of the view in the viewer reference space's coordinate system.

A view has an associated projection matrix which is a matrix describing the projection to be used when rendering the view, provided by the underlying XR device. The projection matrix MAY include transformations such as shearing that prevent the projection from being accurately described by a simple frustum.

A view has an associated eye which is an XREye describing which eye this view is expected to be shown to. If the view does not have an intrinsically associated eye (the display is monoscopic, for example) this value MUST be set to "none".

Note: Many HMDs will request that content render two views, one for the left eye and one for the right, while most magic window devices will only request one view, but applications should never assume a specific view configuration. For example: A magic window device may request two views if it is capable of stereo output, but may revert to requesting a single view for performance reasons if the stereo output mode is turned off. Similarly, HMDs may request more than two views to facilitate a wide field of view or displays of different pixel density.

 enum    XREye   {
    "none"  ,
    "left"  ,
    "right" 
};
[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRView   {
   readonly   attribute   XREye   eye ;
   readonly   attribute   Float32Array   projectionMatrix ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRRigidTransform   transform ;
};

The eye attribute describes is the eye of the underlying view. This attribute’s primary purpose is to ensure that pre-rendered stereo content can present the correct portion of the content to the correct eye.

The projectionMatrix attribute is the projection matrix of the underlying view. It is strongly recommended that applications use this matrix without modification or decomposition. Failure to use the provided projection matrices when rendering may cause the presented frame to be distorted or badly aligned, resulting in varying degrees of user discomfort. This attribute MUST be computed by obtaining the projection matrix for the XRView.

The transform attribute is the XRRigidTransform of the viewpoint. It represents the position and orientation of the viewpoint in the XRReferenceSpace provided in getViewerPose().

Each XRView has an associated frame which is the XRFrame that produced it.

Each XRView has an associated underlying view which is the underlying view that it represents.

Each XRView has an associated internal projection matrix which stores the projection matrix of its underlying view. It is initially null.

Note: The transform can be used to position camera objects in many rendering libraries. If a more traditional view matrix is needed by the application one can be retrieved by calling view.transform.inverse.matrix.

To obtain the projection matrix for a given XRView view

  1. If view’s internal projection matrix is not null, perform the following steps:

  2. If the operation IsDetachedBuffer on internal projection matrix is false, return view’s internal projection matrix.

  3. Set view’s internal projection matrix to a new matrix which is equal to view’s underlying view's projection matrix.

  4. Return view’s internal projection matrix.

7.2. XRViewport

An XRViewport object describes a viewport, or rectangular region, of a graphics surface.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRViewport   {
   readonly   attribute   long   x ;
   readonly   attribute   long   y ;
   readonly   attribute   long   width ;
   readonly   attribute   long   height ;
};

The x and y attributes define an offset from the surface origin and the width and height attributes define the rectangular dimensions of the viewport.

The exact interpretation of the viewport values depends on the conventions of the graphics API the viewport is associated with:

  • When used with an XRWebGLLayer the x and y attributes specify the lower left corner of the viewport rectangle, in pixels, with the viewport rectangle extending width pixels to the right of x and height pixels above y. The values can be passed to the WebGL viewport function directly.

The following code loops through all of the XRViews of an XRViewerPose, queries an XRViewport from an XRWebGLLayer for each, and uses them to set the appropriate WebGL viewports for rendering.

xrSession . requestAnimationFrame (( time ,  xrFrame )   =>   {
   let  viewer  =  xrFrame . getViewerPose ( xrReferenceSpace );
  gl . bindFramebuffer ( xrWebGLLayer . framebuffer );
   for   ( xrView  of  viewer . views )   {
     let  xrViewport  =  xrWebGLLayer . getViewport ( xrView );
    gl . viewport ( xrViewport . x ,  xrViewport . y ,  xrViewport . width ,  xrViewport . height );
     // WebGL draw calls will now be rendered into the appropriate viewport.
   }
 });

8. Geometric Primitives

8.1. Matrices

WebXR provides various transforms in the form of matrices . WebXR uses the WebGL conventions when communicating matrices, in which 4x4 matrices are given as 16 element Float32Arrays with column major storage, and are applied to column vectors by premultiplying the matrix from the left. They may be passed directly to WebGL’s uniformMatrix4fv function, used to create an equivalent DOMMatrix, or used with a variety of third party math libraries.

Matrices returned from the WebXR Device API will be a 16 element Float32Array laid out like so:

[a0, a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7, a8, a9, a10, a11, a12, a13, a14, a15]

Applying this matrix as a transform to a column vector specified as a DOMPointReadOnly like so:

{x:X, y:Y, z:Z, w:1}

Produces the following result:

a0 a4 a8  a12  *  X  =  a0 * X + a4 * Y +  a8 * Z + a12
a1 a5 a9  a13     Y     a1 * X + a5 * Y +  a9 * Z + a13
a2 a6 a10 a14     Z     a2 * X + a6 * Y + a10 * Z + a14
a3 a7 a11 a15     1     a3 * X + a7 * Y + a11 * Z + a15

8.2. Normalization

There are several algorithms which call for a vector or quaternion to be normalized, which means to scale the components to have a collective magnitude of 1.0.

To normalize a list of components the UA MUST perform the following steps:

  1. Let length be the square root of the sum of the squares of each component.

  2. If length is 0, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  3. Divide each component by length and set the component.

8.3. XRRigidTransform

An XRRigidTransform is a transform described by a position and orientation. When interpreting an XRRigidTransform the orientation is always applied prior to the position.

An XRRigidTransform contains an internal matrix which is a matrix.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]
 interface    XRRigidTransform   {
   constructor ( optional   DOMPointInit    position   = {},  optional   DOMPointInit    orientation   = {});
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   DOMPointReadOnly   position ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   DOMPointReadOnly   orientation ;
   readonly   attribute   Float32Array   matrix ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRRigidTransform   inverse ;
};

The XRRigidTransform(position, orientation) constructor MUST perform the following steps when invoked:

  1. Let transform be a new XRRigidTransform.

  2. If position is not a DOMPointInit initialize transform’s position to { x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0, w: 1.0 }.

  3. If position’s w value is not 1.0, throw a TypeError.

  4. Initialize transform’s position’s x value to position’s x dictionary member, y value to position’s y dictionary member, z value to position’s z dictionary member and w to 1.0.

  5. Initialize transform’s orientation as follows:

    If orientation is not a DOMPointInit
    Initialize transform’s orientation to { x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0, w: 1.0 }.
    Else
    Initialize transform’s orientation’s x value to orientation’s x dictionary member, y value to orientation’s y dictionary member, z value to orientation’s z dictionary member and w value to orientation’s w dictionary member.
  6. Initialize transform’s internal matrix to null.

  7. Normalize x, y, z, and w components of transform’s orientation.

  8. Return transform.

The position attribute is a 3-dimensional point, given in meters, describing the translation component of the transform. The position's w attribute MUST be 1.0.

The orientation attribute is a quaternion describing the rotational component of the transform. The orientation MUST be normalized to have a length of 1.0.

The matrix attribute returns the transform described by the position and orientation attributes as a matrix. This attribute MUST be computed by obtaining the matrix for the XRRigidTransform.

Note: This matrix when premultiplied onto a column vector will rotate the vector by the 3D rotation described by orientation, and then translate it by position. Mathematically in column-vector notation, this is M = T * R, where T is a translation matrix corresponding to position and R is a rotation matrix corresponding to orientation.

To obtain the matrix for a given XRRigidTransform transform

  1. If transform’s internal matrix is not null, perform the following steps:

  2. If the operation IsDetachedBuffer on internal matrix is false, return transform’s internal matrix.

  3. Let translation be a new matrix which is a column-vector translation matrix corresponding to position. Mathematically, if position is (x, y, z), this matrix is

    Mathematical expression for column-vector translation matrix

  4. Let rotation be a new matrix which is a column-vector rotation matrix corresponding to orientation. Mathematically, if orientation is the unit quaternion (qx, qy, qz, qw), this matrix is

    Mathematical expression for column-vector rotation matrix

  5. Set transform’s internal matrix to a new matrix set to the result of multiplying translation and rotation with translation on the left (translation * rotation). Mathematically, this matrix is

    Mathematical expression for matrix of multiplying translation and rotation with translation on the left

  6. Return transform’s internal matrix.

The inverse attribute returns an XRRigidTransform which, if applied to an object that had previously been transformed by the original XRRigidTransform, would undo the transform and return the object to its initial pose. This attribute SHOULD be lazily evaluated. The XRRigidTransform returned by inverse MUST return the originating XRRigidTransform as its inverse.

An XRRigidTransform with a position of { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 w: 1 } and an orientation of { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0, w: 1 } is known as an identity transform .

To multiply two XRRigidTransforms , B and A, the UA MUST perform the following steps:

  1. Let result be a new XRRigidTransform object.

  2. Set result’s matrix to the result of premultiplying B’s matrix from the left onto A’s matrix.

  3. Set result’s orientation to the quaternion that describes the rotation indicated by the top left 3x3 sub-matrix of result’s matrix.

  4. Set result’s position to the vector given by the fourth column of result’s matrix.

  5. Return result.

result is a transform from A’s source space to B’s destination space.

Note: This is equivalent to constructing an XRRigidTransform whose orientation is the composition of the orientation of A and B, and whose position is equal to A’s position rotated by B’s orientation, added to B’s position.

9. Pose

9.1. XRPose

An XRPose describes a position and orientation in space relative to an XRSpace.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRPose   {
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRRigidTransform   transform ;
   readonly   attribute   boolean   emulatedPosition ;
};

The transform attribute describes the position and orientation relative to the base XRSpace.

The emulatedPosition attribute is false when the transform represents an actively tracked 6DoF pose based on sensor readings, or true if its position value includes a computed offset, such as that provided by a neck or arm model.

9.2. XRViewerPose

An XRViewerPose is an XRPose describing the state of a viewer of the XR scene as tracked by the XR device. A viewer may represent a tracked piece of hardware, the observed position of a users head relative to the hardware, or some other means of computing a series of viewpoints into the XR scene. XRViewerPoses can only be queried relative to an XRReferenceSpace. It provides, in addition to the XRPose values, an array of views which include rigid transforms to indicate the viewpoint and projection matrices. These values should be used by the application when render a frame of an XR scene.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]  interface    XRViewerPose   :  XRPose  {
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   FrozenArray < XRView >  views ;
};

The views array is a sequence of XRViews describing the viewpoints of the XR scene, relative to the XRReferenceSpace the XRViewerPose was queried with. Every view of the XR scene in the array must be rendered in order to display correctly on the XR device. Each XRView includes rigid transforms to indicate the viewpoint and projection matrices, and can be used to query XRViewports from layers when needed.

Note: The XRViewerPose's transform can be used to position graphical representations of the viewer for spectator views of the scene or multi-user interaction.

10. Input

10.1. XRInputSource

An XRInputSource represents an XR input source , which is any input mechanism which allows the user to perform targeted actions in the same virtual space as the viewer. Example XR input sources include, but are not limited to, handheld controllers, optically tracked hands, and gaze-based input methods that operate on the viewer's pose. Input mechanisms which are not explicitly associated with the XR Device, such as traditional gamepads, mice, or keyboards SHOULD NOT be considered XR input sources.

 enum    XRHandedness   {
    "none"  ,
    "left"  ,
    "right" 
};
 enum    XRTargetRayMode   {
   "gaze" ,
   "tracked-pointer" ,
   "screen" 
};
[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]
 interface    XRInputSource   {
   readonly   attribute   XRHandedness   handedness ;
   readonly   attribute   XRTargetRayMode   targetRayMode ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRSpace   targetRaySpace ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   XRSpace ?  gripSpace ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   FrozenArray < DOMString >  profiles ;
};

The handedness attribute describes which hand the XR input source is associated with, if any. Input sources with no natural handedness (such as headset-mounted controls) or for which the handedness is not currently known MUST set this attribute "none".

The targetRayMode attribute describes the method used to produce the target ray, and indicates how the application should present the target ray to the user if desired.

  • gaze indicates the target ray will originate at the viewer and follow the direction it is facing. (This is commonly referred to as a "gaze input" device in the context of head-mounted displays.)

  • tracked-pointer indicates that the target ray originates from either a handheld device or other hand-tracking mechanism and represents that the user is using their hands or the held device for pointing. The orientation of the target ray relative to the tracked object MUST follow platform-specific ergonomics guidelines when available. In the absence of platform-specific guidance, the target ray SHOULD point in the same direction as the user’s index finger if it was outstretched.

  • screen indicates that the input source was an interaction with the canvas element associated with an inline session’s output context, such as a mouse click or touch event.

The targetRaySpace attribute is an XRSpace that has a native origin tracking the position and orientation of the preferred pointing ray of the XRInputSource, as defined by the targetRayMode.

The gripSpace attribute is an XRSpace that has a native origin tracking to the pose that should be used to render virtual objects such that they appear to be held in the user’s hand. If the user were to hold a straight rod, this XRSpace places the native origin at the centroid of their curled fingers and where the -Z axis points along the length of the rod towards their thumb. The X axis is perpendicular to the back of the hand being described, with back of the users right hand pointing towards +X and the back of the user’s left hand pointing towards -X. The Y axis is implied by the relationship between the X and Z axis, with +Y roughly pointing in the direction of the user’s arm.

The gripSpace MUST be null if the input source isn’t inherently trackable such as for input sources with a targetRayMode of "gaze" or "screen".

The profiles attribute is a list of input profile names indicating both the prefered visual representation and behavior of the input source.

An input profile name is a lowercase DOMString containing no spaces, with separate words concatenated with a hyphen (-) character. A descriptive name should be chosen, using the prefered verbiage of the device vendor when possible. If the platform provides an appropriate identifier, such as a USB vendor and product ID, it MAY be used. Values that uniquely identify a single device, such as serial numbers, MUST NOT be used. The input profile name MUST NOT contain an indication of device handedness. If multiple user agents expose the same device, they SHOULD make an effort to report the same input profile name. The WebXR Input Profiles Registry is the recommended location for managing input profile names.

Profiles are given in descending order of specificity. Any input profile names given after the first entry in the list should provide fallback values that represent alternative representations of the device. This may include a more generic or prior version of the device, a more widely recognized device that is sufficiently similar, or a broad description of the device type (such as "generic-trigger-touchpad"). If multiple profiles are given, the layouts they describe must all represent a superset or subset of every other profile in the list.

If the XRSession's mode is "inline", profiles MUST be an empty list.

If the input device cannot be reliably identified, or the user agent wishes to mask the input device being used, it MAY choose to only report generic input profile names or an empty list.

For example, the Samsung HMD Odyssey’s controller is a design variant of the standard Windows Mixed Reality controller. Both controllers share the same input layout. As a result, the profiles for a Samsung HMD Odyssey controller could be: ["samsung-odyssey", "microsoft-mixed-reality", "generic-trigger-squeeze-touchpad-thumbstick"]. The appearance of the controller is most precisely communicated by the first profile in the list, with the second profile describing an acceptable substitute, and the last profile a generic fallback that describes the device in the roughest sense. (It’s a controller with a trigger, squeeze button, touchpad and thumbstick.)

Similarly, the Valve Index controller is backwards compatible with the HTC Vive controller, but the Index controller has additional buttons and axes. As a result, the profiles for the Valve Index controller could be: ["valve-index", "htc-vive", "generic-trigger-squeeze-touchpad-thumbstick"]. In this case the input layout described by the "valve-index" profile is a superset of the layout described by the "htc-vive" profile. Also, the "valve-index" profile indicates the precise appearance of the controller, while the "htc-vive" controller has a significantly different appearance. In this case the UA would have deemed that difference acceptable. And as in the first example, the last profile is a generic fallback.

(Exact strings are examples only. Actual profile names are managed in the WebXR Input Profiles Registry.)

Note: XRInputSources in an XRSession's inputSources array are "live". As such values within them are updated in-place. This means that it doesn’t work to save a reference to an XRInputSource's attribute on one frame and compare it to the same attribute in a subsequent frame to test for state changes, because they will be the same object. Therefore developers that wish to compare input state from frame to frame should copy the content of the state in question.

Each XR input source SHOULD define a primary action . The primary action is a platform-specific action that, when engaged, produces selectstart, selectend, and select events. Examples of possible primary actions are pressing a trigger, touchpad, or button, speaking a command, or making a hand gesture. If the platform guidelines define a recommended primary input then it should be used as the primary action, otherwise the user agent is free to select one.

When an XR input source for XRSession session begins its primary action the UA MUST run the following steps:

  1. Queue a task to fire an XRInputSourceEvent named selectstart on session.

When an XR input source source for XRSession session ends its primary action the UA MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be a new XRFrame with session session for the time the event occurred.

  2. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Fire an input source event with name select, frame frame, and source source.

    2. Fire an input source event with name selectend, frame frame, and source source.

Sometimes platform-specific behavior can result in a primary action being interrupted or cancelled. For example, a XR input source may be removed from the XR device after the primary action is started but before it ends.

When an XR input source source for XRSession session has its primary action cancelled the UA MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be a new XRFrame with session session for the time the event occurred.

  2. Queue a task to fire an input source event an XRInputSourceEvent with name selectend, frame frame, and source source.

10.2. Transient input

Some XR Devices may support transient input sources , where the XR input source is only meaningful while performing it’s primary action. An example would be mouse, touch, or stylus input against an "inline" XRSession, which MUST produce a transient XRInputSource with a targetRayMode set to screen. Transient input sources are only present in the session’s list of active XR input sources for the duration of the the selectstart, select, and selectend event sequence.

Transient input sources follow a slightly different sequence when firing primary action events:

When a transient input source source for XRSession session begins its primary action the UA MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be a new XRFrame with session session for the time the event occurred.

  2. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Fire any "pointerdown" events produced by the XR input source's action, if necessary.

    2. Add the XR input source to the list of active XR input sources.

    3. Fire an input source event with name selectstart, frame frame, and source source.

When a transient input source source for XRSession session ends its primary action the UA MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be a new XRFrame with session session for the time the event occurred.

  2. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Fire an input source event with name select, frame frame, and source source.

    2. Fire any "click" events produced by the XR input source's action, if necessary.

    3. Fire an input source event with name selectend, frame frame, and source source.

    4. Remove the XR input source from the list of active XR input sources.

    5. Fire any "pointerup" events produced by the XR input source's action, if necessary.

When a transient input source source for XRSession session has its primary action cancelled the UA MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be a new XRFrame with session session for the time the event occurred.

  2. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

    1. Fire an input source event with name selectend, frame frame, and source source.

    2. Remove the XR input source from the list of active XR input sources.

    3. Fire any "pointerup" events produced by the XR input source's action, if necessary.

10.3. XRInputSourceArray

An XRInputSourceArray represents a list of XRInputSources. It is used in favor of a frozen array type when the contents of the list are expected to change over time, such as with the XRSession inputSources attribute.

[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]
 interface    XRInputSourceArray   {
   iterable < XRInputSource >;
   readonly   attribute   unsigned   long   length ;
   getter   XRInputSource ( unsigned   long    index  );
};

The length attribute of XRInputSourceArray indicates how many XRInputSources are contained within the XRInputSourceArray.

The indexed property getter of XRInputSourceArray retrieves the XRInputSource at the provided index.

11. Layers

Note: While this specification only defines the XRWebGLLayer layer, future extensions to the spec are expected to add additional layer types and the image sources that they draw from.

11.1. XRWebGLLayer

An XRWebGLLayer is a layer which provides a WebGL framebuffer to render into, enabling hardware accelerated rendering of 3D graphics to be presented on the XR device.

 typedef  ( WebGLRenderingContext   or
          WebGL2RenderingContext )   XRWebGLRenderingContext  ;
 dictionary    XRWebGLLayerInit   {
   boolean    antialias   =  true ;
   boolean    depth   =  true ;
   boolean    stencil   =  false ;
   boolean    alpha   =  true ;
   boolean    ignoreDepthValues   =  false ;
   double    framebufferScaleFactor   = 1.0;
};
[ SecureContext ,  Exposed = Window ]
 interface    XRWebGLLayer   {
   constructor ( XRSession    session  ,
              XRWebGLRenderingContext    context  ,
              optional   XRWebGLLayerInit    layerInit   = {});
  // Attributes
   readonly   attribute   boolean   antialias ;
   readonly   attribute   boolean   ignoreDepthValues ;
  [ SameObject ]  readonly   attribute   WebGLFramebuffer   framebuffer ;
   readonly   attribute   unsigned   long   framebufferWidth ;
   readonly   attribute   unsigned   long   framebufferHeight ;
  // Methods
   XRViewport ?  getViewport ( XRView    view  );
  // Static Methods
   static   double   getNativeFramebufferScaleFactor ( XRSession    session  );
};

Each XRWebGLLayer has a context object, initially null, which is an instance of either a WebGLRenderingContext or a WebGL2RenderingContext.

Each XRWebGLLayer has an associated session , which is the XRSession it was created with.

The XRWebGLLayer(session, context, layerInit) constructor MUST perform the following steps when invoked:

  1. Let layer be a new XRWebGLLayer

  2. If session’s ended value is true, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  3. If context is lost, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  4. If session is an immersive session and context’s XR compatible boolean is false, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  5. Initialize layer’s context to context.

  6. Initialize layer’s session to session.

  7. Initialize layer’s ignoreDepthValues as follows:

    If layerInit’s ignoreDepthValues value is false and the XR Compositor will make use of depth values
    Initialize layer’s ignoreDepthValues to false
    Otherwise
    Initialize layer’s ignoreDepthValues to true
  8. Initialize layer’s composition disabled boolean as follows:

    If session is an inline session
    Initialize layer’s composition disabled to true
    Otherwise
    Initialize layer’s composition disabled boolean to false
  9. If layer’s composition disabled boolean is false:
    1. Initialize layer’s antialias to layerInit’s antialias value.

    2. Initialize layer’s framebuffer to a new opaque framebuffer created with context and layerInit’s depth, stencil, and alpha values.

    3. Allocate and initialize resources compatible with session’s XR device, including GPU accessible memory buffers, as required to support the compositing of layer.

    4. If layer’s resources were unable to be created for any reason, throw an OperationError and abort these steps.

    Otherwise
    1. Initialize layer’s antialias to layer’s context's actual context parameters antialias value.

    2. Initialize layer’s framebuffer to null.

  10. Return layer.

Note: If an XRWebGLLayer's composition disabled boolean is set to true all values on the XRWebGLLayerInit object are ignored, since the WebGLRenderingContext's default framebuffer was already allocated using the context’s actual context parameters and cannot be overridden.

The context attribute is the WebGLRenderingContext the XRWebGLLayer was created with.

Each XRWebGLLayer has a composition disabled boolean which is initially set to false. If set to true it indicates that the XRWebGLLayer MUST NOT allocate its own WebGLFramebuffer, and all properties of the XRWebGLLayer that reflect framebuffer properties MUST instead reflect the properties of the context's default framebuffer.

The framebuffer attribute of an XRWebGLLayer is an instance of a WebGLFramebuffer which has been marked as opaque if composition disabled is false, and null otherwise. The framebuffer size cannot be adjusted by the developer after the XRWebGLLayer has been created.

An opaque framebuffer functions identically to a standard WebGLFramebuffer with the following changes that make it behave more like the default framebuffer:

Note: User agents are not required to respect true values of depth and stencil, which is similar to WebGL’s behavior when creating a drawing buffer

The buffers attached to an opaque framebuffer MUST be cleared to the values in the table below when first created, or prior to the processing of each XR animation frame. This is identical to the behavior of the WebGL context’s default framebuffer.

Buffer Clear Value
Color (0, 0, 0, 0)
Depth 1.0
Stencil 0

Note: Implementations may optimize away the required implicit clear operation of the opaque framebuffer as long as a guarantee can be made that the developer cannot gain access to buffer contents from another process. For instance, if the developer performs an explicit clear then the implicit clear is not needed.

Each XRWebGLLayer has a target framebuffer , which is the framebuffer if composition disabled is false, and the context's default framebuffer otherwise.

The framebufferWidth and framebufferHeight attributes return the width and height of the target framebuffer's attachments, respectively.

The antialias attribute is true if the target framebuffer supports antialiasing using a technique of the UAs choosing, and false if no antialiasing will be performed.

The ignoreDepthValues attribute, if true, indicates the XR Compositor MUST NOT make use of values in the depth buffer attachment when rendering. When the attribute is false it indicates that the content of the depth buffer attachment will be used by the XR Compositor and is expected to be representative of the scene rendered into the layer.

Depth values stored in the buffer are expected to be between 0.0 and 1.0, with 0.0 representing the distance of depthNear and 1.0 representing the distance of depthFar, with intermediate values interpolated linearly. This is the default behavior of WebGL. (See documentation for the depthRange function for additional details.))

Note: Making the scene’s depth buffer available to the compositor allows some platforms to provide quality and comfort improvements such as improved reprojection.

Each XRWebGLLayer MUST have a list of viewports which is a list containing one WebGL viewport for each XRView the XRSession currently exposes. The viewports MUST NOT be overlapping. If composition disabled is true, the list of viewports MUST contain a single WebGL viewport that covers the context's entire default framebuffer.

getViewport() queries the XRViewport the given XRView should use when rendering to the layer.

The getViewport(view) method, when invoked on an XRWebGLLayer layer, MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let frame be view’s frame.

  2. If frame’s session is not equal to layer’s session, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  3. If frame’s active boolean is false, throw an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

  4. Let glViewport be the WebGL viewport from the list of viewports associated with view.

  5. Let viewport be a new XRViewport instance.

  6. Initialize viewport’s x to glViewport’s x component.

  7. Initialize viewport’s y to glViewport’s y component.

  8. Initialize viewport’s width to glViewport’s width.

  9. Initialize viewport’s height to glViewport’s height.

  10. Return viewport.

Each XRSession MUST identify a native WebGL framebuffer resolution , which is the pixel resolution of a WebGL framebuffer required to match the physical pixel resolution of the XR device.

The native WebGL framebuffer resolution is determined by running the following steps:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession.

  2. If session’s mode value is not "inline", set the native WebGL framebuffer resolution to the resolution required to have a 1:1 ratio between the pixels of a framebuffer large enough to contain all of the session’s XRViews and the physical screen pixels in the area of the display under the highest magnification and abort these steps. If no method exists to determine the native resolution as described, the recommended WebGL framebuffer resolution MAY be used.

  3. If session’s mode value is "inline", set the native WebGL framebuffer resolution to the size of the session’s renderState's output canvas in physical display pixels and reevaluate these steps every time the size of the canvas changes or the output canvas is changed.

Additionally, the XRSession MUST identify a recommended WebGL framebuffer resolution , which represents a best estimate of the WebGL framebuffer resolution large enough to contain all of the session’s XRViews that provides an average application a good balance between performance and quality. It MAY be smaller than, larger than, or equal to the native WebGL framebuffer resolution.

Note: The user agent is free to use and method of it’s choosing to estimate the recommended WebGL framebuffer resolution. If there are platform-specific methods for querying a recommended size it is recommended that they be used, but not required.

The getNativeFramebufferScaleFactor(session) method, when invoked, MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let session be the target XRSession.

  2. If session’s ended value is true, return 0.0 and abort these steps.

  3. Return the value that the session’s recommended WebGL framebuffer resolution must be multiplied by to yield the session’s native WebGL framebuffer resolution.

11.2. WebGL Context Compatibility

In order for a WebGL context to be used as a source for immersive XR imagery it must be created on a compatible graphics adapter for the immersive XR device. What is considered a compatible graphics adapter is platform dependent, but is understood to mean that the graphics adapter can supply imagery to the immersive XR device without undue latency. If a WebGL context was not already created on the compatible graphics adapter, it typically must be re-created on the adapter in question before it can be used with an XRWebGLLayer.

Note: On an XR platform with a single GPU, it can safely be assumed that the GPU is compatible with the immersive XR devices advertised by the platform, and thus any hardware accelerated WebGL contexts are compatible as well. On PCs with both an integrated and discrete GPU the discrete GPU is often considered the compatible graphics adapter since it generally a higher performance chip. On desktop PCs with multiple graphics adapters installed, the one with the immersive XR device physically connected to it is likely to be considered the compatible graphics adapter.

Note: "inline" sessions render using the same graphics adapter as canvases, and thus do not need xrCompatible contexts.

 partial   dictionary   WebGLContextAttributes  {
     boolean    xrCompatible   =  null ;
};
 partial   interface   mixin   WebGLRenderingContextBase  {
     Promise < void >  makeXRCompatible ();
};

When a user agent implements this specification it MUST set a XR compatible boolean, initially set to false, on every WebGLRenderingContextBase. Once the XR compatible boolean is set to true, the context can be used with layers for any XRSession requested from the current immersive XR device.

The XR compatible boolean can be set either at context creation time or after context creation, potentially incurring a context loss. To set the XR compatible boolean at context creation time, the xrCompatible context creation attribute must be set to true when requesting a WebGL context.

The following code creates a WebGL context that is compatible with an immersive XR device and then uses it to create an XRWebGLLayer.

 function  onXRSessionStarted ( xrSession )   {
   let  glCanvas  =  document . createElement (  "canvas"  );
   let  gl  =  glCanvas . getContext (  "webgl"  ,   {  xrCompatible :   true   });
  loadWebGLResources ();
  xrSession . updateRenderState ({  baseLayer :   new  XRWebGLLayer ( xrSession ,  gl )   });
 }

To set the XR compatible boolean after the context has been created, the makeXRCompatible() method is used.

The makeXRCompatible() method ensures the WebGLRenderingContextBase is running on a compatible graphics adapter for the immersive XR device.

When this method is invoked, the user agent MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let promise be a new Promise.

    1. Run the following steps in parallel:

    2. Let context be the target WebGLRenderingContextBase object.

    3. If context’s WebGL context lost flag is set, reject promise with an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

    4. If context’s XR compatible boolean is true, resolve promise and abort these steps.

    5. Ensure an immersive XR device is selected.

    6. If the immersive XR device is null:

      1. Set context’s XR compatible boolean to false.

      2. Reject promise with an InvalidStateError and abort these steps.

    7. If context was created on a compatible graphics adapter for the immersive XR device:

      1. Set context’s XR compatible boolean to true.

      2. Resolve promise and abort these steps.

    8. Queue a task to perform the following steps:

      1. Force context to be lost and handle the context loss as described by the WebGL specification.

      2. If the canceled flag of the "webglcontextlost" event fired in the previous step was not set, reject promise with an AbortError and abort these steps.

      3. Restore the context on a compatible graphics adapter for the immersive XR device.

      4. Set context’s

Read the original on w3.org ↗