On behalf of the Mixed Reality team at Microsoft, I want to share some important updates that will clarify the future of Mixed Reality Toolkit 3 (MRTK3) for our developer and partner community.
From its inception, we created the MRTK3 project to be cross-platform and open-source to benefit the entire ecosystem, not just HoloLens 2. We believe that to be a true multi-platform toolkit that enables greater third-party collaboration, MRTK needs to be recognized as an independent organization that expands beyond Microsoft’s sole jurisdiction. That’s why we have moved MRTK3 Open-Source Software (OSS) outside of Microsoft into its own independent organization within GitHub.
As its own organization, MRTK is now free of previous constraints that made it difficult for developers to introduce other endpoints and influence feature roadmaps. This transition does not change Microsoft’s investment in MRTK3. Instead, we are now afforded the opportunity to increase investments in the program and create a steering committee that includes other major industry players.
Magic Leap joins Microsoft on the steering committee
As a first order of business, the MRTK team is thrilled to announce that Magic Leap, Inc. has joined the organization’s steering committee. Like HoloLens, Magic Leap is a critical player in Augmented Reality (AR) devices, and their developers have been using MRTK UI frameworks, input systems, and other tools to support their augmented reality Unity applications. With Magic Leap joining Microsoft as equal stakeholders on the MRTK3 steering committee, we hope to enrich the current ecosystem and help our developer community create richer, more immersive experiences that span different platforms.
Qualcomm Technologies joins Microsoft on the steering committee
We are also excited to announce that Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. has recently joined the organization’s steering committee. Qualcomm Technologies has worked with Microsoft on past AR initiatives, including providing the System-on-Chip (SoC) platform used in HoloLens 2. Qualcomm Technologies brought support for MRTK3 to the Snapdragon Spaces™ XR Developer Platform last year, enabling developers to leverage MRTK UI frameworks and input systems to build rich and expressive volumetric experiences for Spaces-based Augmented Reality glasses and Virtual Reality headsets. With Qualcomm Technologies joining the steering committee, two of the original architects of MRTK are returning to the project. Given their expertise and contributions, we are grateful to solidify their support and investments in the MRTK3 program and look forward to continued collaboration.
MRTK3 is on track to reach General Availability in September 2023
In addition to these significant changes to the program, we are excited to confirm that MRTK3 is still anticipated to reach General Availability in Q3 of 2023. Developers can expect the launch in the second week of September 2023. See the previous blog post about MRTK3 by clicking here.
We wish to extend our thanks to our customers, partners, and developers for their patience and continued collaboration. We look forward to sharing more updates as we continue growing the MRTK steering committee and collaborating on new open-source features and integrations.
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