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First Steps for VR on the Web - Vladimir Vukićević

Fri, 06/27/2014 - 15:31 -- rprice

We are adding native support for VR devices to early experimental builds of Firefox, so that Web developers can start experimenting with adding VR interactivity to their websites and content. This is only the first of many steps that well be taking over the coming weeks and months. The initial technical vision for VR on the Web includes: Rendering Canvas (WebGL or 2D) to VR output devices Rendering 3D Video to VR output devices (as directly as possible) Rendering HTML (DOM+CSS) content to VR output devices – taking advantage of existing CSS features such as 3D transforms Mixing WebGL-rendered 3D Content with DOM rendered 3D-transformed content in a single 3D space Receiving input from orientation and position sensors, with a focus on reducing latency from input/render to final presentation In particular, Web content should not need to be aware of the particulars of the VR output device, beyond that there is one and it has certain standard rendering characteristics (e.g. a specific projection matrix that’s needed). For example, in the case of the Oculus Rift, content should not need to apply the Rift-specific distortion rendering effect.