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

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Template Project Entity Overlapping and Sticking Issues
Hello, There are three issues I am running into with a default template project + additional minimal code changes: the Sphere_Left entity always overlaps the Sphere_Right entity. when I release the Sphere_Left entity, it does not remain sticking to the Sphere_Right entity when I release the Sphere_Left entity, it distances itself from the Sphere_Right entity When I manipulate the Sphere_Right entity, these above 3 issues do not occur: I get a correct and expected behavior. These issues are simple to replicate: Create a new project in XCode Choose visionOS -> App, then click Next Name your project, and leave all other options as defaults: Initial Scene: Window, Immersive Space Renderer: RealityKit, Immersive Space: Mixed, then click Next Save you project anywhere... Replace the entire ImmersiveView.swift file with the below code. Run. Try to manipulate the left sphere, you should get the same issues I mentioned above If you restart the project, and manipulate only the right sphere, you should get the correct expected behaviors, and no issues. I am running this in macOS 26, XCode 26, on visionOS 26, all released lately. ImmersiveView Code: // // ImmersiveView.swift // import OSLog import SwiftUI import RealityKit import RealityKitContent struct ImmersiveView: View { private let logger = Logger(subsystem: "com.testentitiessticktogether", category: "ImmersiveView") @State var collisionBeganUnfiltered: EventSubscription? var body: some View { RealityView { content in // Add the initial RealityKit content if let immersiveContentEntity = try? await Entity(named: "Immersive", in: realityKitContentBundle) { content.add(immersiveContentEntity) // Add manipulation components setupManipulationComponents(in: immersiveContentEntity) collisionBeganUnfiltered = content.subscribe(to: CollisionEvents.Began.self) { collisionEvent in Task { @MainActor in handleCollision(entityA: collisionEvent.entityA, entityB: collisionEvent.entityB) } } } } } private func setupManipulationComponents(in rootEntity: Entity) { logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) ") let sphereNames = ["Sphere_Left", "Sphere_Right"] for name in sphereNames { guard let sphere = rootEntity.findEntity(named: name) else { logger.error("\(#function) \(#line) Failed to find \(name) entity") assertionFailure("Failed to find \(name) entity") continue } ManipulationComponent.configureEntity(sphere) var manipulationComponent = ManipulationComponent() manipulationComponent.releaseBehavior = .stay sphere.components.set(manipulationComponent) } logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) Successfully set up manipulation components") } private func handleCollision(entityA: Entity, entityB: Entity) { logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) Collision between \(entityA.name) and \(entityB.name)") guard entityA !== entityB else { return } if entityB.isAncestor(of: entityA) { logger.debug("\(#function) \(#line) \(entityA.name) already under \(entityB.name); skipping reparent") return } if entityA.isAncestor(of: entityB) { logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) Skip reparent: \(entityA.name) is an ancestor of \(entityB.name)") return } reparentEntities(child: entityA, parent: entityB) entityA.components[ParticleEmitterComponent.self]?.burst() } private func reparentEntities(child: Entity, parent: Entity) { let childBounds = child.visualBounds(relativeTo: nil) let parentBounds = parent.visualBounds(relativeTo: nil) let maxEntityWidth = max(childBounds.extents.x, parentBounds.extents.x) let childPosition = child.position(relativeTo: nil) let parentPosition = parent.position(relativeTo: nil) let currentDistance = distance(childPosition, parentPosition) child.setParent(parent, preservingWorldTransform: true) logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) Set \(child.name) parent to \(parent.name)") child.components.remove(ManipulationComponent.self) logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) Removed ManipulationComponent from child \(child.name)") if currentDistance > maxEntityWidth { let direction = normalize(childPosition - parentPosition) let newPosition = parentPosition + direction * maxEntityWidth child.setPosition(newPosition - parentPosition, relativeTo: parent) logger.info("\(#function) \(#line) Adjusted position: distance was \(currentDistance), now \(maxEntityWidth)") } } } fileprivate extension Entity { func isAncestor(of other: Entity) -> Bool { var current: Entity? = other.parent while let node = current { if node === self { return true } current = node.parent } return false } } #Preview(immersionStyle: .mixed) { ImmersiveView() .environment(AppModel()) }
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380
Sep ’25
Can´t find a DLL in a VisionOS app with Unity
Dear all, I´m using Unity 6.2 beta and Xcode 16.2. I´m creating a simple framework to use the text to speech functionality in VisionOS from unity. The framework is created in Swift. I create an objective-c wrapper with the following declarations: ... void _initTTS(int); ... I create the framework, import it in Unity and call the functions in a c# wrapper class. The code is as follows: public static class TTSPluginManager { [DllImport("TTS_Vision"] private static extern void _initTTS(int val); ... public static void Initialize() { #if UNITY_VISIONOS _initTTS(0); #else Debug.LogWarning("NativeTTS.Initialize called on a non-iOS platform. Ignoring."); #endif } } I have managed to compile and run the program in the Apple Vision Pro, but I keep on getting the following error: DllNotFoundException: TTS_Vision assembly: type: member:(null) TTSPluginManager.Initialize () (at Assets/Plugins/TTSPluginManager.cs:33) LecturePortalManager.OnCreateStory (Ink.Runtime.Story story) (at Assets/AVRLecture/LecturePortalManager.cs:17) InkLoader.StartStory () (at Assets/AVRLecture/InkLoader.cs:24) InkLoader.Start () (at Assets/AVRLecture/InkLoader.cs:18) If I run the generated code from Xcode, I can see the app in the AVP, but I keep getting a loading error: DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'TTS_Vision'. Tried the load the following dynamic libraries: Unable to load dynamic library '/TTS_Vision' because of 'Failed to open the requested dynamic library (0x06000000) dlerror() = dlopen(/TTS_Vision, 0x0005): tried: '/TTS_Vision' (no such file) at TTSPluginManager.Initialize () [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0 at LecturePortalManager.OnCreateStory (Ink.Runtime.Story story) [0x00000] in <00000000000000000000000000000000>:0 I can see in the generated code that the framework (TTS_Vision) is there, but the path seems wrong. I've tried to add more options to the searched paths, with no success... Any hints or suggestions are much more appreciated.
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272
Sep ’25
Hand Tracking Latency When UITextView Becomes Active in Vision Pro Immersive Space
I'm placing sphere at finger tip and updating its position as hand move. Finger joint tracking functions correctly, but I’ve observed noticeable latency in hand tracking updates whenever a UITextView becomes active. This lag happens intermittently during app usage, lasting about 5–10 seconds, after which the latency disappears and the sphere starts following the finger joints immediately. When I open the immersive space for the first time, the profiler shows a large performance spike upto 328%. After that, it stabilizes and runs smoothly. Note: I don’t observe any lag when CPU usage spikes to 300% (upon immersive view load) yet the lag still occurs even when CPU usage remains below 100%. I’m using the following code for hand tracking: private func processHandTrackingUpdates() async { for await update in handTracking.anchorUpdates { let handAnchor = update.anchor if handAnchor.isTracked { switch handAnchor.chirality { case .left: leftHandAnchor = handAnchor updateHandJoints(for: handAnchor, with: leftHandJointEntities) case .right: rightHandAnchor = handAnchor updateHandJoints(for: handAnchor, with: rightHandJointEntities) } } else { switch handAnchor.chirality { case .left: leftHandAnchor = nil hideAllJoints(in: leftHandJointEntities) case .right: rightHandAnchor = nil hideAllJoints(in: rightHandJointEntities) } } await MainActor.run { handTrackingData.processNewHandAnchors( leftHand: self.leftHandAnchor, rightHand: self.rightHandAnchor ) } } } And here’s the function I’m using to update the joint positions: private func updateHandJoints( for handAnchor: HandAnchor, with jointEntities: [HandSkeleton.JointName: Entity] ) { guard handAnchor.isTracked else { hideAllJoints(in: jointEntities) return } // Check if the little finger tip and intermediate base are both tracked. if let tipJoint = handAnchor.handSkeleton?.joint(.littleFingerTip), let intermediateBaseJoint = handAnchor.handSkeleton?.joint(.littleFingerIntermediateTip), tipJoint.isTracked, intermediateBaseJoint.isTracked, let pinkySphere = jointEntities[.littleFingerTip] { // Convert joint transforms to world space. let tipTransform = handAnchor.originFromAnchorTransform * tipJoint.anchorFromJointTransform let intermediateBaseTransform = handAnchor.originFromAnchorTransform * intermediateBaseJoint.anchorFromJointTransform // Extract positions from the transforms. let tipPosition = SIMD3<Float>(tipTransform.columns.3.x, tipTransform.columns.3.y, tipTransform.columns.3.z) let intermediateBasePosition = SIMD3<Float>(intermediateBaseTransform.columns.3.x, intermediateBaseTransform.columns.3.y, intermediateBaseTransform.columns.3.z) // Calculate the midpoint. let midpointPosition = (tipPosition + intermediateBasePosition) / 2.0 // Position the sphere at the midpoint and make it visible. pinkySphere.isEnabled = true pinkySphere.transform.translation = midpointPosition } else { // If either joint is not tracked, hide the sphere. jointEntities[.littleFingerTip]?.isEnabled = false } // Update the positions of all other hand joint spheres. for (jointName, entity) in jointEntities { if jointName == .littleFingerTip { // Already handled the pinky above. continue } guard let joint = handAnchor.handSkeleton?.joint(jointName), joint.isTracked else { entity.isEnabled = false continue } entity.isEnabled = true let jointTransform = handAnchor.originFromAnchorTransform * joint.anchorFromJointTransform entity.transform.translation = SIMD3<Float>(jointTransform.columns.3.x, jointTransform.columns.3.y, jointTransform.columns.3.z) } } I’ve attached both a profiler trace and a video recording from Vision Pro that clearly demonstrate the issue. Profiler: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fDWyGj_fgxud2ngkGH_IVmuH_kO-z0XZ Vision Pro Recordings: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17qo3U9ivwYBsbaSm26fjaOokkJApbkz- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LxTxgudMvWDhOqKVuhc3QaHfY_1x8iA0 Has anyone else experienced this behavior? My thought is that there might be some background calculations happening at the OS level causing this latency. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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287
Sep ’25
Current Apple Forum about ARKit and visionOS
Recently, questions about ARKit/visionOS seem to be being asked in the Apple forum by internal Apple engineers. Inexperienced and untested makeshift features are being offered, putting average but experienced developers in a difficult position. They are unable to react and get something useful from the posts. Apple needs to review the situation.
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317
Sep ’25
How to combine Occlusion nodes with soft edges.
At a recent community meeting we were wondering how Apple creates this soft-edge effect around the occlusion cutouts. We see this effect on keyboard cutouts, iPhone cutouts, and in progressive spaces. An example: Notice the soft edged around the occlusion cutout for the keyboard One of our members created some Shader Graph materials to explore soft edges. These work by sending data into the opacity channel of the PreviewSurface node. Unfortunately, the Occlusion Surface nodes lack any sort of input. If you know how to blend these concepts with RealityKit Occlusion, please let us know!
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886
Sep ’25
How do we use the new Unified Coordinate Conversion features in visionOS 26?
The landing page for visionOS 26 mentions The Unified Coordinate Conversion API makes moving views and entities between scenes straightforward — even between views and ARKit accessory anchors. This WWDC session very briefly shows a single example of using this, but with no context. For example, they discuss a way to tell the distance between a Model3D and an entity in a RealityView. But they don't provide any details for how they are referencing the entity (bolts in the slide). The session used the BOT-anist example project that we saw in visionOS 2, but the version on in the Sample Code library has not been updated with these examples. I was able to put together a simple example where we can get the position of a window relative to the world origin. It even updates when the user recenters. struct Lab080: View { @State private var posX: Float = 0 @State private var posY: Float = 0 @State private var posZ: Float = 0 var body: some View { GeometryReader3D { geometry in VStack { Text("Unified Coordinate Conversion") .font(.largeTitle) .padding(24) VStack { Text("X: \(posX)") Text("Y: \(posY)") Text("Z: \(posZ)") } .font(.title) .padding(24) } .onGeometryChange3D(for: Point3D.self) { proxy in try! proxy .coordinateSpace3D() .convert(value: Point3D.zero, to: .worldReference) } action: { old, new in posX = Float(new.x) posY = Float(new.y) posZ = Float(new.z) } } } } This is all that I've been able to figure out so far. What other features are included in this new Unified Coordinate Conversion? Can we use this to get the position of one window relative to another? Can we use this to get the position of a view in a window relative to an entity in a RealityView, for example in a Volume or Immersive Space? What else can Unified Coordinate Conversion do? Are there documentation pages that I'm missing? I'm not sure what to search for. Are there any Sample projects that use these features? Any additional information would be very helpful.
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1.4k
Sep ’25
Rendering scene in RealityView to an Image
Is there any way to render a RealityView to an Image/UIImage like we used to be able to do using SCNView.snapshot() ? ImageRenderer doesn't work because it renders a SwiftUI view hierarchy, and I need the currently presented RealityView with camera background and 3D scene content the way the user sees it I tried UIHostingController and UIGraphicsImageRenderer like extension View { func snapshot() -> UIImage { let controller = UIHostingController(rootView: self) let view = controller.view let targetSize = controller.view.intrinsicContentSize view?.bounds = CGRect(origin: .zero, size: targetSize) view?.backgroundColor = .clear let renderer = UIGraphicsImageRenderer(size: targetSize) return renderer.image { _ in view?.drawHierarchy(in: view!.bounds, afterScreenUpdates: true) } } } but that leads to the app freezing and sending an infinite loop of [CAMetalLayer nextDrawable] returning nil because allocation failed. Same thing happens when I try return renderer.image { ctx in view.layer.render(in: ctx.cgContext) } Now that SceneKit is deprecated, I didn't want to start a new app using deprecated APIs.
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1k
Sep ’25
Need to rotate child of a 3D mesh
I am creating a vision pro app with a 3D model, it has a mesh hierarchy of head, hands, feet etc. I want the character to look towards the camera, but am not able to access head of character through sceneKit nor reality kit. when I try to print names of the child meshes, it only prints till the character, it does iterate through all the body parts. Can anyone help?
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155
Sep ’25
Do you retain a reference to your content events in RealityView?
Do you retain a reference to your content (RealityViewContent) events? For example, the Manipulation Events docs from Apple use _ to discard the result. In theory the event should keep working while the content is alive. _ = content.subscribe(to: ManipulationEvents.WillBegin.self) { event in event.entity.components[ModelComponent.self]?.materials[0] = SimpleMaterial(color: .blue, isMetallic: false) } _ = content.subscribe(to: ManipulationEvents.WillEnd.self) { event in event.entity.components[ModelComponent.self]?.materials[0] = SimpleMaterial(color: .red, isMetallic: false) } We could store these events in state. I've seen this in a few samples and apps. @State var beginSubscription: EventSubscription? ... beginSubscription = content.subscribe(to: ManipulationEvents.WillBegin.self) { event in event.entity.components[ModelComponent.self]?.materials[0] = SimpleMaterial(color: .blue, isMetallic: false) } The main advantage I see is that we can be more explicit about when we remove the event. Are there other reasons to keep a reference to these events?
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566
Sep ’25
visionOS Widget Bug
When I was developing the visionOS 26beta Widget, I found that it could not work normally when the real vision OS was running, and an error would appear. Please adopt container background api It is worth mentioning that this problem does not occur on the visionOS virtual machine. Does anyone know what the reason and solution are, or whether this is a visionOS error that needs Feedback? Thank you!
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381
Sep ’25
iOS needs to allow for background bluetooth scanning. I can't fully build my app.
iOS currently restricts background Bluetooth advertising and scanning in order to preserve battery life and protect user privacy. While these restrictions serve important purposes, they also limit legitimate use cases where users have explicitly opted in to proximity-based experiences. The core challenge is that modern social applications need a way to detect when users are physically present at the same location or event without requiring every participant to keep their app in the foreground. Under the current system, background BLE advertising is heavily throttled and can only transmit a limited payload, background scanning intervals are sparse and unpredictable, peer-to-peer proximity detection cannot be maintained reliably when apps are in the background, and Background App Refresh is non-deterministic, making any kind of time-based proximity validation impossible. A proposed enhancement would be to introduce an “Enhanced Proximity Permission.” This would allow developers to enable reliable background BLE advertising and scanning for declared time windows, such as a maximum of eight hours. It would also allow devices running the same app to detect each other’s proximity using ephemeral, rotating identifiers that preserve privacy, with clear user consent and prominent indicators whenever the feature is active. Unlocking this capability would open up new categories of applications. Live events could offer automatic attendance tracking at concerts, conferences, or sports venues. Retail environments could support opt-in foot traffic analysis and dwell-time insights. Social apps could allow users to find friends at festivals, campuses, or other large venues. Safety applications could extend to crowd density monitoring and contact tracing beyond COVID-era needs. Gaming could offer real-world multiplayer experiences based on physical proximity, and transportation providers could verify rideshare pickups or measure public transit flows automatically. Privacy safeguards would remain central. Permissions would be time-boxed and expire after an event or session. A mandatory visual indicator would be displayed whenever proximity tracking is active. A user-facing dashboard would show all apps granted enhanced proximity access. Permissions would automatically be revoked after a period of non-use, and only ephemeral tokens not permanent identifiers would be broadcast. The industry impact would be significant. With this enhancement, iOS could power the next generation of location-aware social platforms while maintaining Apple’s leadership in privacy through explicit user control and transparency. Current alternatives, such as requiring users to keep apps in the foreground or deploying dedicated hardware beacons, produce poor user experiences and constrain innovation in spatial computing and social applications. Can anyone from Apple consider this change? Having to buy iBeacons is brutal and means slower adoption. Please reconsider this for users who opt in.
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1.1k
Aug ’25
RealityKit / visionOS – Memory not released after dismissing ImmersiveSpace with USDZ models
Hi everyone, I’m encountering a memory overflow issue in my visionOS app and I’d like to confirm if this is expected behavior or if I’m missing something in cleanup. App Context The app showcases apartments in real scale using AR. Apartments are heavy USDZ models (hundreds of thousands of triangles, high-resolution textures). Users can walk inside the apartments, and performance is good even close to hardware limits. Flow The app starts in a full immersive space (RealityView) for selecting the apartment. When an apartment is selected, a new ImmersiveSpace opens and the apartment scene loads. The scene includes multiple USDZ models, EnvironmentResources, and dynamic textures for skyboxes. When the user dismisses the experience, we attempt cleanup: Nulling out all entity references. Removing ModelComponents. Clearing cached textures and skyboxes. Forcing dictionaries/collections to empty. Despite this cleanup, memory usage remains very high. Problem After dismissing the ImmersiveSpace, memory does not return to baseline. Check the attached screenshot of the profiling made using Instruments: Initial state: ~30MB (main menu). After loading models sequentially: ~3.3GB. Skybox textures bring it near ~4GB. After dismissing the experience (at ~01:00 mark): memory only drops slightly (to ~2.66GB). When loading the second apartment, memory continues to increase until ~5GB, at which point the app crashes due to memory pressure. The issue is consistently visible under VM: IOSurface in Instruments. No leaks are detected. So it looks like RealityKit (or lower-level frameworks) keeps caching meshes and textures, and does not free them when RealityView is ended. But for my use case, these resources should be fully released once the ImmersiveSpace is dismissed, since new apartments will load entirely different models and textures. Cleanup Code Example Here’s a simplified version of the cleanup I’m doing: func clearAllRoomEntities() { for (entityName, entity) in entityFromMarker { entity.removeFromParent() if let modelEntity = entity as? ModelEntity { modelEntity.components.removeAll() modelEntity.children.forEach { $0.removeFromParent() } modelEntity.clearTexturesAndMaterials() } entityFromMarker[entityName] = nil removeSkyboxPortals(from: entityName) } entityFromMarker.removeAll() } extension ModelEntity { func clearTexturesAndMaterials() { guard var modelComponent = self.model else { return } for index in modelComponent.materials.indices { removeTextures(from: &modelComponent.materials[index]) } modelComponent.materials.removeAll() self.model = modelComponent self.model = nil } private func removeTextures(from material: inout any Material) { if var pbr = material as? PhysicallyBasedMaterial { pbr.baseColor.texture = nil pbr.emissiveColor.texture = nil pbr.metallic.texture = nil pbr.roughness.texture = nil pbr.normal.texture = nil pbr.ambientOcclusion.texture = nil pbr.clearcoat.texture = nil material = pbr } else if var simple = material as? SimpleMaterial { simple.color.texture = nil material = simple } } } Questions Is this expected RealityKit behavior (textures/meshes cached internally)? Is there a way to force RealityKit to release GPU resources tied to USDZ models when they’re no longer used? Should dismissing the ImmersiveSpace automatically free those IOSurfaces, or do I need to handle this differently? Any guidance, best practices, or confirmation would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance!
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1.5k
Aug ’25
Misaligned visionOS Simulator Home Position
Using Xcode v26 Beta 6 on macOS v26 Beta 25a5349a When pressing on the home button of the visionOS simulator, I am not positioned in the middle of the room like would normally be. This occurred when moving a lot in the space to find an element added to an ImmersiveSpace. How to resolve: restart simulator device. See attached the pictures of the visionOSSimulatorCorrectHomePosition and the visionOSSimulatorMisallignedHomePosition.
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874
Aug ’25