Introduction 👋

The pursuit of living and working in virtual reality is a long and difficult road. It requires software at its foundation that is versatile yet also resistant. An open source, decentralized, and scalable architecture is required.

We’re very happy to announce that the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) is partnering with us in this effort.

Vircadia Interface currently runs natively on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This enables users to use their desktop (or VR) to attend virtual worlds with up to hundreds of people in a single instance. While performance and capability are high due to the native implementations, the native implementations are also a barrier to entry: it’s difficult to ask someone to download a large unknown application to try something out. It takes time and effort!

If only we could simply give a link to someone like we do with photos and videos, then suddenly there would be little excuse to not check something out. Discord is a good example of this: you can share a link to a server and all you need is a web browser to attend! The cost to try it is low while the potential reward of joining something interesting is high.

Virtual worlds should have the same simplicity, especially for a first-time experience. You should be able to visit a virtual world with others simply by opening a link in your nearest device’s web browser.

Vircadia, Web, and WebRTC 😲

With this pursuit in mind, the team is moving forward with expanding the open source Vircadia Virtual World ecosystem with the creation of the Vircadia Web interface, version of Interface that runs in your web browser.

We will enable this by adding support for Vircadia’s servers to communicate with web browsers over WebRTC (high performance networking built into your browser).

This means that from anywhere and with (virtually) any device, you will be able to visit virtual worlds with others in real-time complete with spatial audio. Android or iOS? No problem. Oculus Quest 2? You got it. Or maybe you just want to check out an event or expo without all the hassle. You should have the option to attend with whatever device you have within reach.

Also, for the full fidelity experience, you will still be able to download the native interface to your computer.

A Journey with Friends ❤️

We need friends to help make this next step in the open source virtuality journey feasible alongside our current work.

With the partnership of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) we’re able to embark on this ambitious project. 😊

Our shared pursuit of all things free and open has brought us together; supporting the effort to make Vircadia a viable open virtual world development platform.