Hello Magic Leap 2 Developers!
Our November Operating System and SDK release is live! This month’s release features improved hand tracking, new clipping plane settings as well as updates to MRTK, Unity Soundfield and new OpenXR samples.
Release Highlights
- Improvements in Hand Tracking
- Clipping Plane Setting Updates
- Improved Headpose Pixel-Stick Performance
Systems & Performance
Hand Tracking Accuracy and Latency Improvements
Today, we’re publishing drastic improvements to hand tracking based on your feedback. Users will notice a 6x improvement in overall accuracy and a 10% improvement in overall latency of their virtual hands. Keypoints are now more closely aligned with users’ real hands, and the depth is more consistent when rotating the hands from palmar to dorsal view. Part of this improvement comes from synthesizing views of the hand across our multiple World Cameras.
Gestures are also more responsive and reliable, with notable impacts to pinch and Home gesture detection. For best Hand Tracking results, turn off the controller or leave it on a nearby surface. These improvements should be noticeable when using the latest MRTK, MLHandTracking Native, and Unity APIs. To update MRTK 2.8, download the latest Unity package via Magic Leap Hub.
Near Clipping Plane Setting
Users can now adjust the near clipping plane on their Magic Leap 2 devices, to a preferred distance, within the range of 0.25m to 0.37m. Adjustments can be made via the Settings application on device. Developers looking to create apps that accommodate this feature can refer to the Display Zone and Clipping Plane guide on the Magic Leap developer portal. End users seeking more information can explore the Display Zone information in the Magic Leap care center.
Improved Headpose Pixel-Stick Performance
Thanks to improvements in online calibration of the World Cameras, virtual content will better stick to the real world with a 63% improvement on average (e.g. if the error was 2 cm when walking 2 meters, it is now 0.74 cm). The calibration applied affects both extrinsic and intrinsic values, and as a result, may also benefit other algorithms that use the World Cameras. Note that these improvements are unique to each device and are dependent on how well the user maps an area before placing virtual content.
For a full list of features and updates, please visit the 1.4.0 OS Release Notes.
WebXR Hit Test Module
In the 1.4.0 release we added Magic Leap 2 support for the Hit Test Module in WebXR, which allows you to perform raycasting against the real world and place virtual objects on surfaces. You can try out the Hit Test Module by opening the Web XR Hit Test Sample in your Magic Leap’s Web Browser.
Web Browser
We added the ability to identify if a Magic Leap 2 is being used to view your website using the SEC-CH-UA-MODEL ID, which is a part of the Client Hints API. The SEC-CH-UA-MODEL ID will read Magic Leap 2 when using a Magic Leap 2 device, and you can use this information to customize your web content for the device.
Feature Access
Iris Unlock
Unity and Native developers with a Developer Pro or Enterprise license can now access the Iris Unlock feature on the device using the Android Biometrics API. If the user has set an unlock PIN and enrolled with Iris ID, they will be able to conveniently verify their identity after they have completed the initial login.
Featured Guides
Display Zone and Clipping Planes
Users can now set the near clipping plane on their Magic Leap 2 devices to a distance between 0.25m and 0.37m. Visit the Display Zone and clipping planes section of the developer portal to learn more about best practices, settings priority and how to adjust the clipping plane settings from your application.
Lock Task Mode
The Magic Leap OS provides a command line tool for enabling Android Lock task mode, which can come handy during application demos. Follow this guide to learn more.
RenderDoc
We noticed some cases where RenderDoc would have trouble launching and connecting to an application run on the device if the usb connection is slow. This in turn caused issues with profiling these applications. The solution for this is to increase the timeout timer within RenderDoc to allow it more time to connect to the device. We have added this information to our documentation for RenderDoc available to users.
SDK Release Highlights
C SDK
This release contains deprecations for Magic Leap Camera and Multimedia APIs in favor of standard Android NDK/SDK APIs. Developers are encouraged to update their applications to use new APIs. Additionally a set of custom system intents is now available. These new intents enable support for USB SIP/SOP flows for Medical SKUs.
Unity SDK
This month’s release comes with a number of features and bug fixes, as well as the deprecation of the MLCamera API in favor of the Android SDK Camera API or the NDK Camera API. This release also deprecates the MLMedia API and the MLMediaPlayerBehavior API in favor of the Unity 2022.3.10 VideoPlayer component.
OpenXR Samples 1.4.0
The 1.4.0 OpenXR samples contain improved support for XR_EXT_hand_interaction, added experimental support for XR_ML_localization_map and added experimental support for XR_ML_marker_understanding. Refer to the release notes for a list of known issues.
Audio
Soundfield Audio Unity Plugin 3.4.3
This update added additional power saving measures when no voices are playing and includes a scene cleanup update in the samples.
Unity MRTK
1.12.0 version 1.0
This update made the hand gesture pinch detection more responsive. Please see the release notes for more information on available APIs.
1.4.0 Package Version Guide
Listed below are the version numbers of the packages that comprise the 1.4.0 update:
- Magic Leap OS - 1.4.0-dev2 [B3E.230907.10-R.033]
- Unity SDK -1.12.0
- C SDK - 1.4.0
- Soundfield Audio for Unity - 3.4.3
- Unity MRTK 2.8 Package - 1.12.0 version 1.0
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.
Developer Input and Feedback
Our Developer Forum and our Bug Report submission form are prime channels for direct input to continuously improve Magic Leap 2. If you have an issue developing for our platform, give us a shout on the Forum. We respond to each question. If you suspect you’ve found a bug, don’t hesitate to report it to us either through the bug report form or a forum post.
That’s it for this month. Best wishes on your Magic Leap 2 project and we’ll see you on the Forum.