Lighting Estimation API Available in Chrome
The lighting estimation API for WebXR is now available for experimental use in handheld AR on Android. A sample is available but developers must apply for an origin trial token to enable it for their site. The goal of origin trials like this is to allow the Chrome team to make available experimental APIs to developers but to also have the option to expire the trial should the API fail to become a standard or need major changes.
WebXR Input Profiles Now Available For Unity
The Immersive Web Community Group's public library of 3D models and metadata for controllers has been in use by web libraries like Three.js and Babylon.js for more than a year but this week it arrived on the popular native game engine, Unity. Thanks to the work of Oren Weizman, Unity developers can now import an open source package that provides the proper controller model and behavior in WebXR experiences.
PlayCanvas Experiments with Image Tracking
Prolific engine contributor, Max M, has revealed that he's working on support for the experimental image tracking API for WebXR which is now available as an origin trial on Android Chrome. Interested coders can check out the pull request which demonstrates both the API and some of the interesting aspects of PlayCanvas.
Depth Sensing API Available in Chrome
Like the lighting estimation API mentioned above, the depth sensing API in WebXR is now available for experimental use in handheld AR on Android. A sample is available but developers must apply for an origin trial token to enable it for their site.
TPAC Videos are Online, Including "Accessing WebXR Through Art"
This is one example of the excellent sessions about the immersive web at the W3C's big virtual get-together.
"Topics will include the development of the p5.XR library to lower the barrier to entry for new coders, a volumetric performance toolkit that re-imagines immersive web spaces as a site for more equitable representation of humans in mediated performance, and using WebVR to connect art students and their studio practices in a remote-learning context."