April 2023 Release - 1.2.0
Cheers all,
Get ready for our April 2023 Operating System and SDK Release, which marks our major quarterly production release and is jam-packed with new Enterprise-focused features. Let’s explore the highlights, and what a major quarterly production release means.
Remote Rendering
First, let’s dive into a thrilling new feature for Enterprise and Developer Pro licenses. New this month is a breath-taking new preview service called Magic Leap Remote Rendering. Don’t take our word for it. The car in this photo is not a physical object, but remotely rendered through Magic Leap 2 in stunning detail.
Remote Rendering is available as a service through Magic Leap Hub. It empowers users to experience interactive content with advanced graphics qualities, and allows enterprise customers to reuse existing 3D assets without modification, compression, or decimation.
Using Remote Rendering allows smooth integration with existing 3D workflows and applications such as Unreal Engine, Omniverse, and more. Please note OpenVR and SteamVR apps are not currently supported.
One way we’re already using this feature is in partnership with Nvidia to pioneer immersive, photorealistic, ray-traced digital twins in NVIDIA OmniverseTM to create new efficiencies and value in engineering, architecture, retail, and other industries.
Check out our Magic Leap Developer Documentation for a guide on how to set up Remote Rendering. For any questions concerning your Enterprise or Developer Pro license, don’t hesitate to send us a message.
Enterprise User Management
Also new this month for Enterprise and Developer Pro licenses is Enterprise user management functionality to control which users may log into fleets of devices, including allowing multiple users per device with an Enterprise or Developer Pro License. Password functionality is also now supported and can be enabled through the Settings app.
Each device can now support a total eight user profiles, with eye calibration for each new profile. Please note this is an early preview feature, and the Release Notes identify known issues which will be fixed in upcoming releases. Check the official April Release Notes on the Developer Portal or through the Magic Leap Hub for additional details.
AR Cloud
We’ve enhanced AR Cloud by adding Geo Coordinate functionality to our Spaces app, and made it easier to get started using the Virtual Machine on the Developer Portal. We’ve also added support for the German language in the Enterprise Console.
Soundfield Audio
We now support the Unity Audio Mixer in our Magic Leap Soundfield Audio plugin. This enables developers to route audio from the AudioSource to a mixer group, add any desired effects and insert the Soundfield Audio plugin at the very end of the effects. This plugin then sends the audio after processing back to the MLPointSource. See our Soundfield Audio Plugin Release Notes for additional details.
Release Cycle
This release also marks a major quarterly production update. What does that mean?
As we improve our capabilities and release new versions of the Magic Leap OS, SDKs, tools and applications, we aim to provide developers and customers a clear and easy way of understanding what's included in a release, what has changed and what is supported. We communicate that through this newsletter and through our Release Notes section on the Magic Leap 2 Developer Portal.
Our major quarterly production releases have straightforward version numbering - such as the current 1.2.0. We typically feature major new features and API access, such as Remote Rendering and a new API to access Eye Camera data in this month’s release.
The next two month’s releases of each quarter typically feature improvements, enhancements, and fixes, and are annotated with “-dev1” or “-dev2” at the end of a higher number release version. For instance, January’s production release was 1.1.0, February’s developer release advanced to 1.2.0-dev1, March’s developer release was 1.2.0-dev2 and now April’s production release is 1.2.0.
To give you peace of mind that upgrades will not affect your applications and that you can jump multiple versions with reasonable expectations that things won’t break, we aim to support the current release and up to four minor versions behind for a total of five versions. For example, this means if your app was built with Unity SDK version of 1.2.x, we intend for it to still be compatible with this month’s 1.6.x. The same applies with our Operating System and Native C SDK, which can be referenced in each month’s release notes.
Head Tracking API deprecations
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we are deprecating some Magic Leap 2 Head Tracking APIs. The following API’s are deprecated, and are scheduled to be removed by October 2023:
- Deprecated MLHeadTrackingError, replaced with MLHeadTrackingErrorFlag;
- Deprecated MLHeadTrackingMode, replaced with MLHeadTrackingStatus;
- Deprecated MLHeadTrackingState, replaced with MLHeadTrackingStateEx;
- Deprecated MLHeadTrackingGetState, replaced with MLHeadTrackingGetStateEx.
API Release Highlights
- Added MLNotifications API to suppress default notifications in medical SKUs. (Unity)
- MLWebView: added open and close callbacks for popup tabs. (Unity)
- New API to access Eye Camera data (C-API)
- New Eye Camera sample application (C-API)
- New API to manage Magic Leap Spaces (C-API)
- Added three new options for spectral analysis in ML Audio API:
- Added eye openness data to MLEyeTracking API (C-API)
- Added support for depth data with IR projector enabled to MLDepthCamera API (C-API)
Systems & Performance
- Web pages can be compiled into .apk’s and can be launched from the home menu. They follow their own lifecycle separate from the Browser app. Locked task mode is not supported for Progressive Web Apps at this time.
- Added support for handling and selecting multiple language tracks for subtitles in Unity.
- A new battery status LED pattern for the Compute Pack is displayed as a response to the user's short press on the power button. This new feature works in Standby (Doze) mode and active (On) mode.
- When the user side loads an .apk, the device will play a distinct LED pattern.
- Support for Android-compliant Bluetooth and A2DP Bluetooth hearing aids has been added.
- Altimeter sensor data is now available via Android SDK and NDK APIs.
- Capture settings have been added to the capture app and the Hub. Users can now adjust capture settings from the user interface, instead of just the command line.
April 2023 Package Version Guide
Listed below are the version numbers of the packages that comprise the April 2023 update:
- Magic Leap OS - 1.2.0 [B3E.230330.11-R.043]
- Unity SDK -1.6.0
- C SDK - 1.2.0
- MRTK - 1.6.0 Version 1.0
- Unity MRTK3 Package 1.0.0 Preview 1
- OpenXR - 1.2.0
Reminder: if you update to the latest SDK, you also need to update the OS on your device. If you are using Unity, be sure to use the versions listed above for full compatibility. After you download the packages listed above, check out our setup guides.
One final thought: keep innovating. When we say Magic Leap 2 is the most immersive Enterprise AR device, this is one brilliant example of that.