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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Imitating a grip on an object
I'm playing about with the hand tracking systems in reality kit / Vision Pro I thought it would be interesting if I could attach a virtual object to a hand when the hand is gripping (thought it would be fun to attach a basic cylinder to mimic a wand from Harry Potter) I'm able to detect when the user is gripping but having trouble placing an object as though it's within the hand. The simplest version of this is using an AnchorEntity pointing to the user's palm which kind of works, but quickly breaks the illusion when you rotate the wrist or hand. It seems as though I will have to roll my own anchor entity using the various points of the user's hand and I thought calculating some median point between the thumb and little finger tips would be a good start but it's proven a little difficult as we need both rotation and position. I'm already out of my depth with reality kit and matrices (and thanks to ChatGPT) I have some code, but as soon as I apply the position manually (as opposed to a hand anchor entity) it fails to render on the user's hand. It feels like this should already have been something someone has looked in to, any ideas on what might be the issue here? Note: HandTrackingSystem.handTracking is a HandTrackingProvider() guard let anchors = HandTrackingSystem.handTracking.latestAnchors.leftHand else { return } if let thumb = anchors.handSkeleton?.joint(.thumbTip), let little = anchors.handSkeleton?.joint(.littleFingerTip) { let thumbPos = simd_make_float3(thumb.anchorFromJointTransform.columns.3) let littlePos = simd_make_float3(little.anchorFromJointTransform.columns.3) let midPos = (thumbPos + littlePos) / 2 let direction = normalize(littlePos - thumbPos) let rotation = simd_quatf(from: [0, 1, 0], to: direction) wandEntity.transform.translation = midPos wandEntity.transform.rotation = rotation content.add(wandEntity) }
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Jul ’25
RealityKit entity.write(to:) generates fatal protection error
My app for framing and arranging pictures from Photos on visionOS allows users to write the arrangements they create to .reality files using RealityKit entity.write(to:) that they then display to customers on their websites. This works perfectly on visionOS 2, but fails with a fatal protection error on visionOS 26 beta 1 and beta 2 when write(to:) attempts to write to its internal cache: 2025-06-29 14:03:04.688 Failed to write reality file Error Domain=RERealityFileWriterErrorDomain Code=10 "Could not create parent folders for file path /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/81E1DDC4-331F-425D-919B-3AB87390479A/Library/Caches/com.GeorgePurvis.Photography.FrameItVision/RealityFileBundleZippingTmp_A049685F-C9B2-479B-890D-CF43D13B60E9/41453BC9-26CB-46C5-ADBE-C0A50253EC27." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Could not create parent folders for file path /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/81E1DDC4-331F-425D-919B-3AB87390479A/Library/Caches/com.GeorgePurvis.Photography.FrameItVision/RealityFileBundleZippingTmp_A049685F-C9B2-479B-890D-CF43D13B60E9/41453BC9-26CB-46C5-ADBE-C0A50253EC27.} Has anyone else encountered this problem? Do you have a workaround? Have you filed a feedback? ChatGPT analysis of the error and my code reports: Why there is no workaround • entity.write(to:) is a black box — you cannot override where it builds its staging bundle • it always tries to create those random folders itself • you cannot supply a parent or working directory to RealityFileWriter • so if the system fails to create that folder, you cannot patch it 👉 This is why you see a fatal error with no recovery. See also feedbacks: FB18494954, FB18036627, FB18063766
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Jul ’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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Sep ’25
VisionOS Beta 3 spatial sculpting apple sample crash
Hello since updating to beta 3 the sculpting sample app doesn't work it crashes on running. seems to be something in AnchorEntity or AccessoryAnchoringSource Referenced from: <00B81486-1A74-30A0-B75B-4B39E3AF57DF> /private/var/containers/Bundle/Application/3D2EBF59-19F0-4BF4-8567-6962AA36A2C6/delete.app/delete.debug.dylib Expected in: <BAA9B221-78A1-3B99-AA2F-B8DFCD179FC7> /System/Library/Frameworks/RealityFoundation.framework/RealityFoundation
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357
Jul ’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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455
Sep ’25
Ornaments in Presentations
We can add ornaments to popovers shown by PresentationComponent, but I’m not sure if we should. While working on the editor for entities in a Volume-based app, I had the idea to add ornaments to the presented views. The entire app exists inside a volume. A user can tap a item to present a popoverUI to edit it. This is displayed using the new PresentationComponent in visionOS 26. Ornaments have a new attachment anchor option this year: .parent(). .ornament(attachmentAnchor: .parent(.top), ornament: {...}) This works well in the Simulator. We can add ornaments around this popover view just like we would with a window. Unfortunately, when I run this on device I get a different experience. Any part of the ornament that overlaps with the popover content isn’t rendered correctly. Sometimes it entirely disappears, other times it becomes partially transparent. We could use content alignment to try to make sure the ornament doesn’t overlap the popover content. .ornament(attachmentAnchor: .parent(.top), contentAlignment: .bottom, ornament: {...}) This works sometimes–but not all the time. It’s not clear if this is a bug or not, because I’m not sure if we are even supposed to be able to use ornaments in this way. Here is my hierarchy: An app opens as a Volume Volume presenting a RealityView, with its own ornament using .scene() anchor Multiple Entities with Presentation Component show an edit view The view uses .parent() anchor to add ornaments. What makes me unsure is that other methods for drawing UI in RealityView don’t seem to work with ornaments. For example, if I add an attachment to show a view with the ornament–even when I use the .parent() anchor–the ornament is anchor to the volume, not the attachment view. So what do we think? Is this a rendering bug? Are ornaments intended to work with attachments and presentations?
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364
Aug ’25
Keyboard Tracking
Hi! I'm currently experimenting on Apple Vision Pro with hand and head anchors. Is there a way to get an anchor linked to the apple magic keyboard (as the detection is already done to display inputs at the top)? Thanks in advance, Have a good day!
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650
Jul ’25
Alternatives to SceneView
Hey there, since SceneView has been marked as „deprecated“ for SwiftUI, I‘m wondering which alternatives should be considered for the following situation: I have a SwiftUI app (for iOS and iPadOS) where users can view (with rotate, scale, move gestures) 3D models (USDZ) in a scene. The models will be downloaded from web backend and called via local URL paths. What I tested: I‘ve tried ARView in .nonAR mode, RealityView, however I didn‘t get the expected response -> User can rotate, scale the 3D models in a virtual space. ARView in nonAR mode still shows the object like in normal AR mode without camera stream. I tried to add Gestures to the RealityView on iOS - loading USDZ 3D models worked but the gestures didn’t). Model3D is only available for visionOS (that would be amazing to have it for iOS) I also checked QuickLook Preview however it works pretty strange via Filepicker etc, which is not the way how the user should load the 3D models in my app. Maybe I missed something, I couldn’t find anything which can help me. I‘m pretty much stucked adopting the latest and greatest frameworks/APIs in my App and taking the next steps porting my app to visionOS. Long story short 😃: Does someone have an idea what is the alternative to SceneView for USDZ 3D models? I appreciate your support!! Thanks in advance!
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Jul ’25
How to Achieve Realistic Colors and Textures in LiDAR Scanning with Swift
Hello, I'm developing a LiDAR-based scanning app using Swift, where I can successfully perform scans and export the results as .obj files. My goal is to have the scan's colors and textures closely resemble real-world visuals as captured by the camera, similar to the results shown in this repository. In the referenced repository, the result is demonstrated with a single screenshot, but I want to display the textures and colors throughout the entire scanning process, not just at the final result. To clarify, I'm not focused on scanning individual objects but rather larger environments like rooms, houses, or outdoor spaces such as streets. Here’s what I’m aiming for: Realistic colors and textures that match what the camera sees during the scan. Continuous texture rendering during the scanning process, not just in the final exported model. Could anyone share guidance, sample code, or point me to relevant documentation to achieve this? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
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143
May ’25
Bones/joints data issue - USD file export from Blender to RCP
Hi, I'm developing a prototype VisionOS game. How to access the bones or joints information when exporting a USD file from Blender to RCP? The animation in RCP works fine and the joints' information is correctly embedded in the USDA file (with usdchecker). However, RCP does not read it in USDA, USDC or USDZ. It should be possible based on Apple WWDC24 (Compose Interactive 3D content in RCP). I want to attach and detach an entity to a particular bone in certain moments. So I need the bones' data. They are standard mixamo animations. My mesh is a single unified mesh. Using Blender 4.4
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Sep ’25
FromToByAnimation triggers availableAnimations not the single bone animation
So, I was trying to animate a single bone using FromToByAnimation, but when I start the animation, the model instead does the full body animation stored in the availableAnimations. If I don't run testAnimation nothing happens. If I run testAnimation I see the same animation as If I had called entity.playAnimation(entity.availableAnimations[0],..) here's the full code I use to animate a single bone: func testAnimation() { guard let jawAnim = jawAnimation(mouthOpen: 0.4) else { print("Failed to create jawAnim") return } guard let creature, let animResource = try? AnimationResource.generate(with: jawAnim) else { return } let controller = creature.playAnimation(animResource, transitionDuration: 0.02, startsPaused: false) print("controller: \(controller)") } func jawAnimation(mouthOpen: Float) -> FromToByAnimation<JointTransforms>? { guard let basePose else { return nil } guard let index = basePose.jointNames.firstIndex(of: jawBoneName) else { print("Target joint \(self.jawBoneName) not found in default pose joint names") return nil } let fromTransforms = basePose.jointTransforms let baseJawTransform = fromTransforms[index] let maxAngle: Float = 40 let angle: Float = maxAngle * mouthOpen * (.pi / 180) let extraRot = simd_quatf(angle: angle, axis: simd_float3(x: 0, y: 0, z: 1)) var toTransforms = basePose.jointTransforms toTransforms[index] = Transform( scale: baseJawTransform.scale * 2, rotation: baseJawTransform.rotation * extraRot, translation: baseJawTransform.translation ) let fromToBy = FromToByAnimation<JointTransforms>( jointNames: basePose.jointNames, name: "jaw-anim", from: fromTransforms, to: toTransforms, duration: 0.1, bindTarget: .jointTransforms, repeatMode: .none, ) return fromToBy } PS: I can confirm that I can set this bone to a specific position if I use guard let index = newPose.jointNames.firstIndex(of: boneName) ... let baseTransform = basePose.jointTransforms[index] newPose.jointTransforms[index] = Transform( scale: baseTransform.scale, rotation: baseTransform.rotation * extraRot, translation: baseTransform.translation ) skeletalComponent.poses.default = newPose creatureMeshEntity.components.set(skeletalComponent) This works for manually setting the bone position, so the jawBoneName and the joint-transformation can't be that wrong.
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306
Aug ’25
Perspective problem
Hi, I called it "perspective problem", but I'm not quite sure what it is. I have a tag that I track with builtin camera. I calculate its pose, then use extrinsics and device anchor to calculate where to place entity with model. When I place an entity that overlaps with physical object and start to look at it from different angles, the virtual object begins to move. Initially I thought that it's something wrong with calculations, or some image distortion closer to camera edges is affecting tag detection. To check, I calculated the position only once and displayed entity there, the physical tracked object is not moving. Now, when I move my head, so the object is more to the left, or right in my field of view, the virtual object becomes misaligned to the left, or right. It feels like a parallax effect, but distance from me to entity and to physical object are exactly the same. Is that expected, because of some passthrough correction magic? And if so, can I somehow correct it back, so the entity always overlaps with object? I'm currently on v26 beta 5. I also don't quite understand the camera extrinsics, because it seems that I need to flip it around X by 180 degrees to make it work in deviceAnchor * extrinsics.inverse * tag (shouldn't it be in same coordinates as all other RealityKit things?).
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Aug ’25
RealityKit Entity ComponentSet does not conform to Sequence?
Hello, I'm trying to view the components of an Entity I'm creating in RealityKit by reading from a USDZ file. I have the following code snippet in my app. if let appleEntity = try? Entity.loadModel(named: "apple_tile") { let c = appleEntity.components for comp in c { // <- compiler error here print(comp) } } The compiler error I'm receiving says "For-in loop requires 'Entity.ComponentSet' to conform to 'Sequence'". However, I thought this was the case, according to the documentation for Entity.ComponentSet? Curious if anyone else has had this problem. Running XCode 15.4, and my Swift version is xcrun swift -version swift-driver version: 1.90.11.1 Apple Swift version 5.10 (swiftlang-5.10.0.13 clang-1500.3.9.4) Target: x86_64-apple-macosx14.0
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423
Mar ’25
spatial-backdrop feature available yet?
In WWDC25 session What’s new for the spatial web, the presenter showed creating an immersive environment for a web page by adding to the page's HEAD section <link rel="spatial-backdrop" href="office.usdz" environmentmap="lighting.hdr"> My first attempt failed, and I am trying to track down why. Before I search all the potential failure paths, I wanted to ask the community, Is this feature available in the latest visionOS 26 beta? I haven't seen anyone talk about their use of the feature yet.
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265
Aug ’25