WebXR Raw Camera Access

Category: Device
Type: New or changed feature
Status: Enabled by default (Chrome 107)
Intent stage: Prepare to ship

Summary

Allows applications authored against the WebXR Device API to access pose-synchronized camera image textures from within WebXR sessions.

Motivation

Currently, to protect user privacy, WebXR Device API does not provide a way to expose camera images to the sites. Additionally, alternative ways for sites to obtain raw camera access (getUserMedia() web API) are not going to provide the application with pose-synchronized camera images. For some scenarios, this limitation may pose a barrier to adoption of WebXR Device API. Providing applications with access to camera images should allow them to experiment more rapidly with additional AR-related features that may be possible to implement purely in JavaScript.

Standards & signals

Specification: https://immersive-web.github.io/raw-camera-access
Firefox: Defer
Safari: Oppose
Web developers: No signals — Some positive signals in internal communications.
Tracking bug: https://crbug.com/1090056

Docs: https://github.com/immersive-web/raw-camera-access/blob/main/explainer.md https://immersive-web.github.io/raw-camera-access

Samples: https://storage.googleapis.com/chromium-webxr-test/latest.html?target=proposals/camera-access-barebones.html

Explainers: https://github.com/immersive-web/raw-camera-access/blob/main/explainer.md

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