Forum Discussion
Petition to allow developers access to camera feed
I know that Meta says that for privacy reasons developers can't access the camera feed but without direct camera access it is almost impossible to develop a good mixed-reality app.
If the developers are unable to see what the user is seeing how are we supposed to develop actual augmented reality content, having access to the camera feed would unlock many new kinds of applications that would help give a scope to the existence of the mixed reality headsets.
I am creating this discussion for two reasons:
1) I would like to understand how many developers have the same problem
2) Find a solution to the privacy problem
My proposed solution would be to require specific authorization from the user and to display some kind of signal (like the green dot that appears on Android) that the app has access to the camera while it is being used because this is both an issue for the user and the people around him it would probably be necessary to add an LED on the outside of the headset that blinks when the camera feed is being accessed (something like the meta ray ban smart glasses).
I believe that camera feed access will be necessary sometime in the future of this technology (maybe when it will be a pair of smart glasses) and it would be cool to be able to develop apps for that vision.
P.S. I know that there are other discussions about the same topic but I belive that we should all discuss in one to attract meta attention.
6 Replies
This device is useless for most AR usecases manipulating a real context. AVP, Quests, are software bricked - you can't do much with them - makes no sense for AR - unless we get access to camera feed - I mostly want to use them in industrial context - not what was planned for those headset. The only device that gives me hope is the Lynx R1 if we receive them. I was trying to access the MediaProjectionAPI to see if we could screen grab in AR - and do something with that feed. Unfortunately the access to the api seems deactivated.
Interestingly they release a streaming live capability - so let me know why we can't access the camera while they allow streaming a feed live - I'm just wondering where stands their notion of security / privacy ??
This is 100% the biggest roadblock for AR apps, makes the quest kinda useless for now. I only found out today when i thought "let me download a translation app really quick", only to realize that there are no apps with actual utility right now. i wanted to be able to look at a sign or book and have it translate.
Come on Meta, what a waste to have a device like a quest 3 and can't use all the funtionalities!!
i fully support as ive owned every dev kit i could ever get hold of last 20 years (except dk1)...im still actively using dk2 ..is it possible to get ray ban free by the way ? sorry if I'm way late on this question.
You can now access the Meta Quest's Passthrough Camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z3pcMJbnRA
See samples here: https://github.com/xrdevrob/QuestCameraKit
Official Passthrough Camera Samples: https://github.com/oculus-samples/Unity-PassthroughCameraApiSamples
Documentation: https://developers.meta.com/horizon/documentation/unity/unity-pca-overview
