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Photogrammetry requiring lidar-capable phones, curious why
Hello! I'm currently building an app where I feed images into a Photogrammetry session to create a USDZ. Pretty straightforward, works great. We've recently started some testing on older devices, and have discovered that Photogrammetry is requiring devices that have LIDAR (we've seen some console logs referencing LIDAR if we stumble through a photogrammetry process without checking isSupported first) Judging from @swredcam's posting about ReefScan from November 24 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/769221) it looks like Photogrammetry did work on those non-LIDAR devices. In my own testing on an iPhone 12 mini with iOS 17, PhotogrammetrySession says it's not supported. Since we're only feeding in a sequence of photos that have never had depth data, and they process fine on pro/max devices, we're curious why this would require a LIDAR sensor to work, when it seems like it did work without LIDAR in the past. Or is there some other limitation of non-pro devices that is causing photogrammetry to not be supported (especially on today's really powerful hardware) Thanks! ++md
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Mar ’25
RealityKit SIMD3<Float> precision decreases with distance?
The farther away the center of a large entity is, the less accurate the positioning is? For example I am changing only the y-axis position of an entity that is tens of meters long, but i notice x and z drifting slowly the farther away the center of the entity is. I would not expect the x and z to move. It might be compounding rounding errors somewhere, or maybe the RealityKit engine is deciding not to be super precise about distant objects? Otherwise I just have a bug somewhere.
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Mar ’25
How to properly pass a Metal layer from SwiftUI MTKView to C++ for use with metal-cpp?
Hello! I'm currently porting a videogame console emulator to iOS and I'm trying to make the renderer (tested on MacOS) work on iOS as well. The emulator core is written in C++ and uses metal-cpp for rendering, whereas the iOS frontend is written in Swift with SwiftUI. I have an Objective-C++ bridging header for bridging the Swift and C++ sides. On the Swift side, I create an MTKView. Inside the MTKView delegate, I run the emulator for 1 video frame and pass it the view's backing layer for it to render the final output image with. The emulator runs and returns, but when it returns I get a crash in Swift land (callstack attached below), inside objc_release, which indicates I'm doing something wrong with memory management. My bridging interface (ios_driver.h): #pragma once #include <Foundation/Foundation.h> #include <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h> void iosCreateEmulator(); void iosRunFrame(CAMetalLayer* layer); Bridge implementation (ios_driver.mm): #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> extern "C" { #include "ios_driver.h" } <...> #define IOS_EXPORT extern "C" __attribute__((visibility("default"))) std::unique_ptr<Emulator> emulator = nullptr; IOS_EXPORT void iosCreateEmulator() { ... } // Runs 1 video frame of the emulator and IOS_EXPORT void iosRunFrame(CAMetalLayer* layer) { void* layerBridged = (__bridge void*)layer; // Pass the CAMetalLayer to the emulator emulator->getRenderer()->setMTKLayer(layerBridged); // Runs the emulator for 1 frame and renders the output image using our layer emulator->runFrame(); } My MTKView delegate: class Renderer: NSObject, MTKViewDelegate { var parent: ContentView var device: MTLDevice! init(_ parent: ContentView) { self.parent = parent if let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice() { self.device = device } super.init() } func mtkView(_ view: MTKView, drawableSizeWillChange size: CGSize) {} func draw(in view: MTKView) { var metalLayer = view.layer as! CAMetalLayer // Run the emulator for 1 frame & display the output image iosRunFrame(metalLayer) } } Finally, the emulator's render function that interacts with the layer: void RendererMTL::setMTKLayer(void* layer) { metalLayer = (CA::MetalLayer*)layer; } void RendererMTL::display() { CA::MetalDrawable* drawable = metalLayer->nextDrawable(); if (!drawable) { return; } MTL::Texture* texture = drawable->texture(); <rest of rendering follows here using the drawable & its texture> } This is the Swift callstack at the time of the crash: To my understanding, I shouldn't be violating ARC rules as my bridging header uses CAMetalLayer* instead of void* and Swift will automatically account for ARC when passing CoreFoundation objects to Objective-C. However I don't have any other idea as to what might be causing this. I've been trying to debug this code for a couple of days without much success. If you need more info, the emulator code is also on Github Metal renderer: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/src/core/renderer_mtl/renderer_mtl.cpp#L58-L68 Bridge implementation: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/src/ios_driver.mm Bridging header: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/include/ios_driver.h Any help is more than appreciated. Thank you for your time in advance.
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Mar ’25
Broadcast Upload Extension
I am trying to use Broadcast upload extension but Broadcast picker starts countdown and stops (swiftUI). Steps i followed. added BroadcastUploadExtension as target same app group for for main app and extension added packages using SPM i seems the extension functions are not getting triggered, i check using UIScreen.main.isCaptured also which always comes as false. i tried Using Logs which never Appeared.
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Mar ’25
Game Center breaks RealityView world tracking
Has anyone come across the issue that setting GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler breaks a RealityView's world tracking on iOS / iPadOS 18 beta 5? I'm in the process of upgrading my app to make use of the much appreciated RealityView unification, using RealityView not only on visionOS but now also on iOS and iPadOS. In my RealityView, I enable world tracking on iOS like this: content.camera = .worldTracking However, device position and orientation were ignored (the camera remained static) and there was no camera pass-through. Then I discovered that the issue disappeared when I remove the line GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler = { viewController, error in // ... some more code ... } So I filed FB14731139 and hope that it will be resolved before the release of iOS / iPadOS 18.
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Mar ’25
Swift Package with Metal
Hi, I've got a Swift Framework with a bunch of Metal files. Currently users have to manually include a Metal Lib in their bundle provided separately, to use the Swift Package. First question; Is there a way to make a Metal Lib target in a Swift Package, and just include the .metal files? (without a binary asset) Second question; If not, Swift 5.3 has resource support, how would you recommend to bundle a Metal Lib in a Swift Package?
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9.1k
Mar ’25
How can I simultaneously apply the drag gesture to multiple entities?
I wanted to drag EntityA while also dragging EntityB independently. I've tried to separate them by entity but it only recognizes the latest drag gesture RealityView { content, attachments in ... } .gesture( DragGesture() .targetedToEntity(EntityA) .onChanged { value in ... } ) .gesture( DragGesture() .targetedToEntity(EntityB) .onChanged { value in ... } ) also tried using the simultaneously but didn't work too, maybe i'm missing something .gesture( DragGesture() .targetedToEntity(EntityA) .onChanged { value in ... } .simultaneously(with: DragGesture() .targetedToEntity(EntityB) .onChanged { value in ... } )
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Mar ’25
GPTK did not build error
Hey there, I tried to install GPTK again, since I had to reinstall the OS for irrelevant reasons. But every time I try to install the tool kit, it gives me theError: apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit 1.1 did not build error. Before that error occired, I had the Openssl error, which I fixed with the rbenv version of openssl. Is there any way to fix this error? Down bellow you'll find the full error message it gave me. The specs for my Mac are (if they are helpful in any way): M1 Pro MBP 14" with 16GB Ram and 512GB SSD. Thanks! ``Error: apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit 1.1 did not build Logs: /Users/myuser/Library/Logs/Homebrew/game-porting-toolkit/00.options.out /Users/myuser/Library/Logs/Homebrew/game-porting-toolkit/01.configure /Users/myuser/Library/Logs/Homebrew/game-porting-toolkit/01.configure.cc /Users/myuser/Library/Logs/Homebrew/game-porting-toolkit/wine64-build If reporting this issue please do so at (not Homebrew/brew or Homebrew/homebrew-core): https://github.com/apple/homebrew-apple/issues```
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Mar ’25
MetalFx
Recently, I adopted MetalFX for Upscale feature. However, I have encountered a persistent build failure for the iOS Simulator with the error message, 'MetalFX is not available when building for iOS Simulator.' To address this, I modified the MetalFX.framework status to 'Optional' within Build Phases > Link Binary With Libraries, adding the linker option (-weak_framework). Despite this adjustment, the build process continues to fail. Furthermore, I observed that the MetalFX sample application provided by Apple, specifically the one found at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/metalfx/applying-temporal-antialiasing-and-upscaling-using-metalfx, also fails to build for the iOS Simulator target. Has anyone encountered this issue?
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Mar ’25
Why is depth/stencil buffer loaded/stored twice in xcode gpu capture?
I used xcode gpu capture to profile render pipeline's bandwidth of my game.Then i found depth buffer and stencil buffer use the same buffer whitch it's format is Depth32Float_Stencil8. But why in a single pass of pipeline, this buffer was loaded twice, and the Load Attachment Size of Encoder Statistics was double. Is there any bug with xcode gpu capture?Or the pass really loaded the buffer twice times?
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360
Mar ’25
Implementing Scalable Order-Independent Transparency (OIT) in Metal
Hi, Apple’s documentation on Order-Independent Transparency (OIT) describes an approach using image blocks, where an array of size 4 is allocated per fragment to store depth and color in a tile shading compute pass. However, when increasing the scene’s depth complexity by adding more overlapping quads, the OIT implementation fails due to the fixed array size. Is there a way to dynamically allocate storage for fragments based on actual depth complexity encountered during rasterization, rather than using a fixed-size array? Specifically, can an adaptive array of fragments be maintained and sorted by depth, where the size grows as needed instead of being limited to 4 entries? Any insights or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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Mar ’25
Building Game Porting Toolkit on Sequoia
Like many folks here, I've recently attempted to build Apple's Game Porting Toolkit on my machine and ran into compiler errors, but instead of going the usual route of downloading the prebuilt package (kindly provided by GCenX), I decided to see if I could force it to build (since it was obviously buildable at some point). Down below is the list of things I had to do to make it work. Disclaimer: There are several dirty hacks I had to attempt to force the system to do what I needed. Use at your own risk. Don't forget to run all brew commands from a Rosetta prompt: arch -x86_64 zsh Install openssl This one is easy. Just run brew tap rbenv/tap brew install rbenv/tap/openssl@1.1 Install Command Line Tools 15.1 This specific version is required since newer versions come with the linker that is not compatible with the custom compiler (game-porting-toolkit-compiler) that GPTK is using. However, by default 15.1 tools won't install on Sequoia since the installer complains that macOS version is too new. Obviously, Apple has their reasons to not allow this, but all we need is a compiler which should be mostly indifferent to the OS version. To trick the installer, we need to change OS requirement of the installer package. You can do it in four easy steps: Copy Command Line Tools.pkg from the mounted Command_Line_Tools_for_Xcode_15.1.dmg to some other directory. Expand the installer package: pkgutil --expand "Command Line Tools.pkg" CLT You might be prompted to install Command Line Tools when you call pkgutil, just install any version. Go to the newly created CLT folder and edit the Distribution file (it may appear as executable but it's just an xml). You would want to change allowed-os-versions to something greater than 15. Removing this section altogether might also work. When done, re-wrap the package: pkgutil --flatten CLT "Command Line Tools 2.pkg" Congratulations, now you should be able to install 15.1 tools on your OS! If you had to install newer Command Line Tools for pkgutil, delete them before installing 15.1: sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools Next step is to make Homebrew accept the outdated 15.1 tools, as by default it'll complain that they're outdated or corrupted. To shut it up, open /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/extend/os/Mac/diagnostic.rb and remove references to check_if_supported_sdk_available from a couple of fatal build check collections. Note - by default, Homebrew will auto-update on any invocation, which will overwrite any changes you've made to its internals. To disable this behavior, before running any brew commands in the terminal, run export HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 After these manipulations, Homebrew might still complain about outdated Command Line Tools, but it won't be a fatal error anymore. Finally, we need to downgrade MinGW to 11.0.1, since the latest version spits out compiler errors when compiling Wine. Unfortunately, Homebrew does a bad job tracking versions of MinGW, so there is no automatic way to do it. Instead, you have to manually download and install old MinGW 11.0.1 formula from the Homebrew git repository. I used the commit from Sep 16, 2023: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/b95f4f9491394af667943bd92b081046ba3406f2/Formula/m/mingw-w64.rb Download the file above, save it in your current working directory, and then run brew install ./mingw-w64.rb If you had a newer version of MinGW already installed from the previous build attempts, you can unlink it before installing the one above: brew unlink mingw-w64 With Command Line Tools 15.1 and MinGW 11.0.1 you should now be able to build GPTK without errors: brew -v install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit In the end, steps above worked for me, although more things could break in the future. I'm leaving the instructions here just to show that it's still possible to build GPTK manually instead of relying on third parties, but with all the hoops I had to jump through I can't really recommend it.
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Mar ’25
Metal: Non-uniform thread groups unsupported in Simulator? Is it?
My app is running Compute Shaders that use non-uniform thread groups. When I run the app in the debugger with a simulator target the app crashes on encoder.dispatchThreads and the error message is: Dispatch Threads with Non-Uniform Threadgroup Size is not supported on this device. Previously the log output states that: Metal Shader Validation is unsupported for Simulator. However: When I stop the debugger and just run the app in the simulator without the debugger attached, the app just runs fine and does not crash. The SwiftUI Preview that also triggers the Compute Shader when preparing data also just runs fine without a crash. I can run and debug on a real device no problem - I just don't have all sizes available. Is there anything I need to check in my lldb/simulator configuration? It obviously does work, just the debugger cannot really deal with it? Any input would be nice as this really slows my down as I have to be extremely careful when debugging on the simulator.
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Mar ’25
Gestures not working correctly when setting the fov orientation to .horizontal
Hi there, I've discovered an issue with gesture handling in RealityKit when setting the camera’s fieldOfViewOrientation to horizontal. For instance, if I render a simple box at the center of the view with a collision shape that exactly matches its dimensions, the actual hit area behaves as if it's smaller than the box. Additionally, when attempting to drag the box away from the center, the hit area appears misaligned—offset slightly towards the center. Since the default fieldOfViewOrientation is vertical and everything works as expected in that mode, it seems that the gesture system might be assuming a vertical FOV. Given that the API allows setting it to horizontal, perhaps gestures should function correctly regardless of the orientation? Thank you!
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Mar ’25
Xcode Playground - The LLDB RPC server has crashed.
I am trying to learn Metal development on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (Sequoia 15.3.1) on Xcode Playground, but when I write these two lines of code: import Metal let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice()! I get the error The LLDB RPC server has crashed. Any ideas as to what I can do to solve this? I have rebooted the machine and reinstalled Xcode...
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Mar ’25
Is there a way to get all the turnbasematches that can join
I am using Unity's GameKit to implement a turnbase game. I want to make a UI in Unity to show all the games I can join. I tried using var matches = await GKTurnBasedMatch.LoadMatches(); to get all the open matches. But it seems that I can only get the matcm related to the current apple account. Can you help me get all the matches? ALSO I used var match = await GKTurnBasedMatchmakerViewController.Request(request); to exit the gamecenter interface and start a game (automatic matching, no one was invited) Another device used var match = await GKTurnBasedMatch.Find(request); to find the game, but it did not find the game, but it start a new game (automatic matching). Can you help me solve these problems?
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Mar ’25
JPEG2000 (JP2) Decoding Works on iOS 16 but Fails on iOS 18
I am extracting a JPEG2000 (JP2) facial image from an NFC passport chip (ISO/IEC 19794-5) and attempting to create a UIImage from it. On iOS 16, the following code works fine: import ImageIO import UIKit func getUIImage(from imageData: [UInt8]) -&gt; UIImage? { let data = Data(imageData) guard let imageSource = CGImageSourceCreateWithData(data as CFData, nil), let cgImage = CGImageSourceCreateImageAtIndex(imageSource, 0, nil) else { print("Failed to decode JP2 image!") return nil } return UIImage(cgImage: cgImage) } However, on iOS 18, this fails with errors like: initialize:1415: *** invalid JPEG2000 file *** makeImagePlus:3752: *** ERROR: 'JP2 ' - failed to create image [-50] CGImageSourceCreateImageAtIndex: *** ERROR: failed to create image [-59] Questions: Did Apple remove or modify JPEG2000 support in iOS 18? Is there an official workaround for decoding JPEG2000 on iOS 18? Should I use Vision/Metal/Core Image instead? Is there a recommended way to convert JPEG2000 to JPEG/PNG before creating a UIImage? Are there any Apple-provided APIs that maintain backward compatibility for JPEG2000 decoding? Additional Info: The UInt8 array has a valid JPEG2000 header (0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0C 6A 50 ...). The image works on iOS 16 but fails on iOS 18. Tested on iPhone running iOS 18.0 beta. Any insights on how to handle JPEG2000 decoding in iOS 18 would be greatly appreciated! 🚀
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Mar ’25
why GLDContextRec::flushContextInternal() leads to abort
The flushContextInternal function in glr_sync.mm:262 called abort internally. What caused this? Was it due to high device temperature or some other reason? Date/Time: 2024-08-29 09:20:09.3102 +0800 Launch Time: 2024-08-29 08:53:11.3878 +0800 OS Version: iPhone OS 16.7.10 (20H350) Release Type: User Baseband Version: 8.50.04 Report Version: 104 Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000 Triggered by Thread: 0 Thread 0 name: Thread 0 Crashed: 0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00000001ed053198 __pthread_kill + 8 (:-1) 1 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00000001fc5e25f8 pthread_kill + 208 (pthread.c:1670) 2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00000001b869c4b8 abort + 124 (abort.c:118) 3 AppleMetalGLRenderer 0x00000002349f574c GLDContextRec::flushContextInternal() + 700 (glr_sync.mm:262) 4 DiSpecialDriver 0x000000010824b07c Di::RHI::onRenderFrameEnd() + 184 (RHIDevice.cpp:118) 5 DiSpecialDriver 0x00000001081b85f8 Di::Client::drawFrame() + 120 (Client.cpp:155) 2024-08-27_14-44-10.8104_+0800-07d9de9207ce4c73289507e608e5de4320d02ccf.crash
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Mar ’25