Lubosz Sarnecki
May 08, 2020
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Today, we are excited to announce the 0.14 release of xrdesktop, the Open Source project which enables interaction with traditional desktop environments, such as GNOME and KDE, in VR.
xrdesktop makes window managers aware of VR and is able to use VR runtimes to render desktop windows in 3D space, with the ability of manipulating them with VR controllers and generating mouse and keyboard input from VR.
Sponsored by Valve, this latest release brings the largest amount of changes yet, with many new features and architectural improvements.
Most importantly, the most exciting improvement is that xrdesktop is now able to run on XR runtimes providing the OpenXR API, which enables running xrdesktop on a full Open Source stack with Monado.
In addition, we also improved and updated the OpenVR backend to OpenVR 1.11, providing full support and the best experience for the latest SteamVR version.
Also completed and enabled in this release is the scene mode, where xrdesktop renders the full environment in our internal Vulkan renderer, in addition to the existing overlay mode. Other changes include a new settings UI and support for the latest GNOME Shell and KWin versions. The full changelog and commit log can be found in our release notes.
A lot of progress has happened in terms of packaging, as our packages are landing in Debian Sid. We also provide a PPA for Ubuntu 20.04 with the current 0.14 release. Users of Arch Linux based distros can continue using our well maintained AUR packages.
Here's a short video showing xrdesktop running on Monado with the Valve Index and Index controllers with Christoph's experimental libsurvive branch.
More information on how to run xrdesktop can be found in our wiki. You can also join our Discord channel to ask questions or discuss this latest release.
If you are interested in 3DUI and the desktop in XR, and would like to further support the development and advancement of xrdesktop, please contact us!
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Comments (6)
Andrew Zhukov:
May 12, 2020 at 05:22 AM
Very promising! Wish to move all my workflow(Blender, emacs) to xrdesktop in the future.
Keep going!
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Bob:
Dec 06, 2020 at 11:27 AM
I'm curious how you expect emacs to work in vr
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Lubosz:
Dec 09, 2020 at 04:40 PM
Emacs works in VR exactly as it does without, by using your physical keyboard. We have plans to improve the visualization of physical keyboards in xrdesktop, which will improve productivity with keyboard focused desktop apps in VR.
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GZY:
Feb 24, 2021 at 05:58 PM
Regarding the physical Keyboard visualisation.
I think Mathias Krenn has come up with a really cool concept. He made a VR Operating System concept video on youtube. Its called "VR-OS: Full Demo". It really was eye opening so to say ;).
I hope i can post the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMwqiAeQDUc
BR.
GZY
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Michael Butash:
Apr 27, 2024 at 04:45 AM
After the disappointment of the Apple Vision Pro to get decent desktop integration, I began to look into XR Desktop again, but is the project at all alive still? Sadly it now needs updated to support packages with KDE Plasma 6 or I'd be inclined to try it out. It would be nice to see this usable with some of the current generation of VR with 4k optics such as the Varja, Bigscreen, and others.
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Lubosz Sarnecki:
Apr 30, 2024 at 01:59 PM
I totally understand the desire to have an open source alternative for controlling your desktop in XR.
In fact we are currently working on and will release xrdesktop 0.17 in the next months, which will update all the integrations we support, including KDE.
For support of certain headsets, look into Monado or SteamVR, which are OpenXR runtimes that xrdesktop can run on.
Ask on Monado's discord for the latest and greatest supported.
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