Hi ,
I'm struggling with visionOS window management and need help with closing child windows programmatically.
App Structure
My app has a Main-Sub window hierarchy:
AWindow (Home/Main)
BWindow (Main feature window)
CWindow (Tool window - child of BWindow)
Navigation flow:
AWindow → BWindow (switch, 1 window on screen)
BWindow → CWindow (opens child, 2 windows on screen)
I want BWindow and CWindow to be separate movable windows (not sheet/popover) so users can position them independently in space.
The Problem
CWindow doesn't close when BWindow closes by tapping the X button below the app (next to the window bar)
User clicks X on BWindow → BWindow closes but CWindow remains
CWindow becomes orphaned on screen
Can close CWindow programmatically when switching BWindow back to AWindow
App launch issue
After closing both windows, CWindow is remembered as last window
Reopening app shows only CWindow instead of BWindow
User gets stuck in CWindow with no way back to BWindow
I've Tried Environment dismissWindow in cleanup but its not working.
// In BWindow.swift
.onDisappear {
if windowManager.isWindowOpen("cWindow") {
dismissWindow(id: "cWindow")
}
}
My App Structure Code Now
// in MyNameApp.swift
@main
struct MyNameApp: App {
var body: some Scene {
WindowGroup(id: "aWindow") {
AWindow()
}
WindowGroup(id: "bWindow") {
BWindow()
}
WindowGroup(id: "cWindow") {
CWindow()
}
}
}
// WindowStateManager.swift
class WindowStateManager: ObservableObject {
static let shared = WindowStateManager()
@Published private var openWindows: Set<String> = []
@Published private var windowDependencies: [String: String] = [:]
private init() {}
func markWindowAsOpen(_ id: String) {
markWindowAsOpen(id, parent: nil)
}
func markWindowAsClosed(_ id: String) {
openWindows.remove(id)
windowDependencies[id] = nil
}
func isWindowOpen(_ id: String) -> Bool {
let isOpen = openWindows.contains(id)
return isOpen
}
func markWindowAsOpen(_ id: String, parent: String? = nil) {
openWindows.insert(id)
if let parentId = parent {
windowDependencies[id] = parentId
}
}
func getParentWindow(of childId: String) -> String? {
let parent = windowDependencies[childId]
return parent
}
func getChildWindows(of parentId: String) -> [String] {
let children = windowDependencies.compactMap { key, value in
value == parentId ? key : nil
}
return children
}
func setNextWindowParent(_ parentId: String) {
UserDefaults.standard.set(parentId, forKey: "nextWindowParent")
}
func getAndClearNextWindowParent() -> String? {
let parent = UserDefaults.standard.string(forKey: "nextWindowParent")
UserDefaults.standard.removeObject(forKey: "nextWindowParent")
return parent
}
func forceCloseChildWindows(of parentId: String) {
let children = getChildWindows(of: parentId)
for child in children {
markWindowAsClosed(child)
NotificationCenter.default.post(
name: Notification.Name("ForceCloseWindow"),
object: nil,
userInfo: ["windowId": child]
)
forceCloseChildWindows(of: child)
}
}
func hasMainWindowOpen() -> Bool {
let mainWindows = ["main", "bWindow"]
return mainWindows.contains { isWindowOpen($0) }
}
func cleanupOrphanWindows() {
for (child, parent) in windowDependencies {
if isWindowOpen(child) && !isWindowOpen(parent) {
NotificationCenter.default.post(
name: Notification.Name("ForceCloseWindow"),
object: nil,
userInfo: ["windowId": child]
)
markWindowAsClosed(child)
}
}
}
}
// BWindow.swift
struct BWindow: View {
@Environment(\.dismissWindow) private var dismissWindow
@ObservedObject private var windowManager = WindowStateManager.shared
var body: some View {
VStack {
Button("Open C Window") {
windowManager.setNextWindowParent("bWindow")
openWindow(id: "cWindow")
}
}
.onAppear {
windowManager.markWindowAsOpen("bWindow")
}
.onDisappear {
windowManager.markWindowAsClosed("bWindow")
windowManager.forceCloseChildWindows(of: "bWindow")
}
.onChange(of: scenePhase) { oldValue, newValue in
if newValue == .background || newValue == .inactive {
windowManager.forceCloseChildWindows(of: "bWindow")
}
}
}
}
// CWindow.swift
import SwiftUI
struct cWindow: View {
@ObservedObject private var windowManager = WindowStateManager.shared
@State private var shouldClose = false
var body: some View {
// Content
}
.onDisappear {
windowManager.markWindowAsClosed("cWindow")
NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(
self,
name: Notification.Name("ForceCloseWindow"),
object: nil
)
}
.onChange(of: scenePhase) { oldValue, newValue in
if newValue == .background {
}
}
.onAppear {
let parent = windowManager.getAndClearNextWindowParent()
windowManager.markWindowAsOpen("cWindow", parent: parent)
NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(
forName: Notification.Name("ForceCloseWindow"),
object: nil, queue: .main) { notification in
if let windowId = notification.userInfo?["windowId"] as? String, windowId == "cWindow" {
shouldClose = true
}
}
}
.onChange(of: shouldClose) { _, newValue in
if newValue {
dismissWindow()
}
}
}
The logs show everything executes correctly, but CWindow remains visible on screen.
Questions
Why doesn't dismissWindow(id:) work in cleanup scenarios?
Is there a proper way to create a window relationships like parent-child relationships in visionOS?
How can I ensure main windows open on app launch instead of tool windows?
What's the recommended pattern for dependent windows in visionOS?
Environment: Xcode 16.2, visionOS 2.0, SwiftUI
Discuss spatial computing on Apple platforms and how to design and build an entirely new universe of apps and games for Apple Vision Pro.
Selecting any option will automatically load the page
Post
Replies
Boosts
Views
Activity
Hey all,
I'm working on a visionOS app that captures live frames from the left and right cameras of Apple Vision Pro using cameraFrame.sample(for: .left/.right).
Apple provides documentation on encoding side-by-side frames into MV-HEVC spatial video using CMTaggedBuffer:
Converting Side-by-Side 3D Video to MV-HEVC
My question:
Is there any way to render tagged frames (e.g. CMTaggedBuffer with .stereoView(.leftEye/.rightEye)) live, directly to a surface in RealityKit or Metal, without saving them to a file?
I’d like to create a true stereoscopic (spatial) live video preview, not just render two images side-by-side.
Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated!
Has Roomplan been abandoned? Two years have gone by without comments from Apple on improvements. Are the improvements behind the scenes? Is there going to be any major updates?
Hi!
I'm currently trying to render another XR scene in front of a RealityKit one.
Actually, I'm anchoring a plane to the head with a shader to display for left/right eye side-by-side images. By default, the camera has a near plane so I can directly draw at z=0.
Is there a way to change the camera near plane? Or maybe there is a better solution to overlay image/texture for left/right eyes?
Ideally, I would layer some kind of CompositorLayer on RealityKit, but that's sadly not possible from what I know.
Thanks in advance and have a good day!
I've tried following apple's documentation to apply a video material on a Model Entity, but I have encountered a compile error while attempting to specify the Spatial Audio type.
It is a 360 video on a Sphere which plays just fine, but the audio is too quiet compared to the volume I get when I preview the video on Xcode. So I tried tried to configure audio playback mode on the material but it gives me a compile error:
"audioInputMode' is unavailable in visionOS
audioInputMode' has been explicitly marked unavailable here
RealityFoundation.VideoPlaybackController.audioInputMode)"
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/videomaterial/
Code:
let player = AVPlayer(url: url)
// Instantiate and configure the video material.
let material = VideoMaterial(avPlayer: player)
// Configure audio playback mode.
material.controller.audioInputMode = .spatial // this line won’t compile.
VisionOS 2.4, Xcode 16.4, also tried Xcode 26 beta 2.
The videos are HEVC MPEG-4 codecs.
Is there any other way to do this, or is there a workaround available?
Thank you.
We can add ornaments to popovers shown by PresentationComponent, but I’m not sure if we should.
While working on the editor for entities in a Volume-based app, I had the idea to add ornaments to the presented views. The entire app exists inside a volume. A user can tap a item to present a popoverUI to edit it. This is displayed using the new PresentationComponent in visionOS 26.
Ornaments have a new attachment anchor option this year: .parent().
.ornament(attachmentAnchor: .parent(.top), ornament: {...})
This works well in the Simulator. We can add ornaments around this popover view just like we would with a window.
Unfortunately, when I run this on device I get a different experience. Any part of the ornament that overlaps with the popover content isn’t rendered correctly. Sometimes it entirely disappears, other times it becomes partially transparent.
We could use content alignment to try to make sure the ornament doesn’t overlap the popover content.
.ornament(attachmentAnchor: .parent(.top), contentAlignment: .bottom, ornament: {...})
This works sometimes–but not all the time. It’s not clear if this is a bug or not, because I’m not sure if we are even supposed to be able to use ornaments in this way. Here is my hierarchy:
An app opens as a Volume
Volume presenting a RealityView, with its own ornament using .scene() anchor
Multiple Entities with Presentation Component show an edit view
The view uses .parent() anchor to add ornaments.
What makes me unsure is that other methods for drawing UI in RealityView don’t seem to work with ornaments. For example, if I add an attachment to show a view with the ornament–even when I use the .parent() anchor–the ornament is anchor to the volume, not the attachment view.
So what do we think? Is this a rendering bug? Are ornaments intended to work with attachments and presentations?
Previously I had developed software using SMI eye trackers, both screen mounted and their mobile glasses, for unique therapeutic and physiology applications. Sadly, after SMI was bought by Apple, their hardware and software have been taken off the market and now it is very difficult to get secondhand-market systems. The Apple Vision Pro integrates the SMI hardware. While I can use ARKit to get gaze position, I do not see a way to access information that was previously made accessible on the SMI hardware, particularly: dwell time and pupil diameter information. I am hopeful (or asking) to see that if a user has a properly set up Optic ID and would opt-in if, either on the present or a future version of visionOS, it might be possible to get access to the data streams for dwell times and pupil diameter. Pupil diameter is particularly important as it is a very good physiological measure of how much stress a person is encountering, which is critical to some of the therapeutic applications that formerly we used SMI hardware. Any ideas, or, if this is not possible, proposing this to the visionOS team would be appreciated!
Topic:
Spatial Computing
SubTopic:
General
.glassEffect(.regular, in: .rect(cornerRadius: 24))
error; 'glassEffect(_:in:isEnabled:)' is unavailable in visionOS
This is not surprising since visionOS already has a native glass interface that formed a model for the other OS's, but this error will create additional overhead for developers creating multi-platform apps that include visionOS.
Hello, I'm adding a CollisionComponent to an entity in RealityView. CollisionComponent requires that a Mesh must be provided as a reference for collision detection. However, in order to achieve more accurate detection, I hope that this Mesh resource is a geometric shape of a USDZ model. Is there any way to make it happen? Thank you!
We applied for the visionOS enterprise permission license, which can help us improve object tracking capabilities on Vision Pro. However, we are unsure how to use it in Unity, specifically how to implement object tracking in Unity and increase the tracking speed.
Hi !
I'm new on this forum, so if I need to update this post to have more info, or anything else, please let me know.
I'm using the Apple Vision Pro to develop some app (with unity). To demonstrate what the user see on the headset, I would like to mirror the view on a device (an iPad in this case). I managed to do this without any issue.
My problem is that, in the Vision Pro, I have an interface that the user can interact with. But I would like to be able to manage myself the interface on the iPad. What I mean is that the user can (or can't, doesn't matter) see the interface in the headset, and the interface is controlled by myself on the iPad.
Is there any way to do this ? Is this a question I should ask on unity's forum ? (I don't think so, because it should be related to the mirroring function non ?)
Topic:
Spatial Computing
SubTopic:
General
Using Xcode v26 Beta 6 on macOS v26 Beta 25a5349a
When pressing on the home button of the visionOS simulator, I am not positioned in the middle of the room like would normally be. This occurred when moving a lot in the space to find an element added to an ImmersiveSpace.
How to resolve: restart simulator device.
See attached the pictures of the visionOSSimulatorCorrectHomePosition and the visionOSSimulatorMisallignedHomePosition.
I am using HelloPhotogrammetry in Xcode
I can make one model with something like HelloPhotogrammetry.main([path_to_folder_of images, path_to_output/model.usdz, "-d", "medium", "-o", "unordered", "-f", "high" ])
But how would I request several models simultaneously? I only want to vary the detail.
[ ("/Users/you/Desktop/model_medium.usdz", detail: .medium), ("/Users/you/Desktop/model_full.usdz", detail: .full), ("/Users/you/Desktop/model_raw.usdz", detail: .raw ]
Here is my code in visionOS 2.3
NavigationSplitView {
List {
}
.navigationTitle("Passwords")
} detail: {
Text("Hello")
.navigationTitle("All")
}
The font size of "Passwords" and "All" are smaller than the ones in Passwords app.
Hello everyone,
I've been trying for a few weeks now to convert a sequential series of meshes into a stop-motion animation in USDZ format.
In Unreal Engine, I’ve already figured out how to transform the sequential series of individual meshes into a smooth animation using the node system and arrays.
Unfortunately, the node system cannot be exported as a usdz animation logic in either Unreal or Blender.
Because of this, I have tried several other methods to incorporate the animation logic. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
I attempted to create the animation in Blender with Render-/Viewports and mapping it to keyframes. However, in my experience, Viewports are not supported in the conversion.
I tried aligning the vertices of individual objects and merging the frames using the Shrinkwrap modifier in Blender, then setting up a morph animation with keyframes. However, because the individual meshes are too different, this results in artifacts, and manually editing each mesh is too difficult for me to handle.
I placed all individual meshes at the same position and animated them sequentially by scaling them from 0 to 100 in keyframes (Frame 1 is visible for 10 frames, then scales down at frame 11, while Frame 2 becomes visible at frame 11, and so on). I also adjusted the keyframes so that the scaling happens in a "constant" manner rather than the default Bezier or linear interpolation. I then converted this animation to .abc, and the result initially looked good. However, some information is lost when converting it with OpenUSD. The animation does not maintain its intended jump-like behavior in USDZ format, and instead, the scaling of individual files is visible in the animation.
I tried using a Blender add-on (StepMotion), which allows the animation to be exported as .abc, but it can only be read in Blender or Unreal. Even in the preview, the animation is not displayed correctly, so converting the animation logic does not work either.
Unfortunately, I have no alternative way to create the animation, as the individual frames have been provided to me as meshes. So far, I haven’t found a way to implement this successfully.
I would be very grateful for any tips or ideas, as I am running out of options on how to make this work.
Thanks in advance!
Topic:
Spatial Computing
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Core Animation
Reality Converter
Visual Design
USDZ
As I understand it there are two ways I can track a hand, or a joint, in RealityKit:
either, create an AnchorEntity, for example AnchorEntity(.hand(.left, location: .palm))
or, set up an ARSession with a HandTrackingProvider ( a lot more code which I haven't repeated here).
Assuming this is correct, when would I want to use one over the other?
What is recommended best practice for importing a Blender 3D file into RCP? I assume as a .usdz file? Is there a WWDC24 session or other Apple resource that best explains this. I want to make sure I provide the right format/file to RCP from Blender.
Similar to the visionOS Spatial Gallery app, I'm developing a visionOS app that will show spatial photos and videos. Is it possible to re-create the horizontal (or a vertical) scrolling functionality that shows spatial photos and spatial video previews? Does the Spatial Gallery app use private APIs to create this functionality? I've been looking at the Quick Look documentation and have been able to use the PreviewApplication to show a single preview, but do not see anything for a collection of files as the Spatial Gallery app presents in the scrolling view. Any insights or direction on how this may be done is greatly appreciated.
We have a project which is currently being built as a XCFramework.
The framework contains a custom component to be used with entities in Reality Composer Pro.
I have tried to se set the RCP Package.swift file to reference the framework package for the in the dependancies.
Nothing that I do with the folder path to reference the code is working.
Do I need to change the project to be using Swift source code instead of a XCFramework?
The component needs to be in the framework as there is a class in the framework that works directly with the custom compoent.
I am able to reference the XCFramework as a Swift Package with other projects.
Topic:
Spatial Computing
SubTopic:
Reality Composer Pro
Is it possible to detect distance from the vision pro to real live objects and people? I tried using scene.raycast to perform a raycast forward from the center of the viewport, but it doesn't seem to react to real life objects, only entities.
I see mentioned here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/776807?answerId=829576022#829576022, that a raycast with scene reconstruction should allow me to measure that distance, as long as the object is non-moving. How could I accomplish that?