Getting Started with StereoKit

Here’s a quick list of what you’ll need to start developing with StereoKit:

• Visual Studio 2019 or 2022 - Use these workloads:
  • .NET Desktop development
  • Universal Windows Platform development (for HoloLens)
  • Mobile development with .Net (for Quest)
• StereoKit’s Visual Studio Template
  • Experienced users might directly use the NuGet package.
• Any OpenXR runtime
  • A flatscreen fallback is available for development.
• Enable Developer Mode (for UWP/HoloLens)
  • Windows Settings->Update and Security->For Developers->Developer Mode

This short video goes through the pre-requisites for building StereoKit’s hello world! You can find a UWP/HoloLens specific version here as well.

For Mac developers: while StereoKit’s simulator does not run on Mac OS, you can still deploy to standalone Android headsets such as Quest! See here for a quick video by community member Raphael about how to do this with the experimental cross platform template.

The Templates

• StereoKit .Net Core
  • .Net Core is for desktop XR on Windows and Linux. It is simple, compiles quickly, and is the best option for most developers.
• StereoKit UWP
  • UWP is for HoloLens 2, and can run on Windows desktop. UWP can be slower to compile, and is no longer receiving updates from the .Net team.
• Cross Platform Template (in development)
  • This is an early version still in project format. It works with .Net Core, UWP, and Xamarin(Android/Quest) all at once via a DLL shared between multiple platform specific projects.
• Native C++ Template (in development)
  • StereoKit does provide a C API, but experienced developers should only choose this if the benefits outweigh the lack of C API documentation.

For an overview of the initial code in the .Net Core and UWP templates, check out this video!

Minimum “Hello Cube” Application

The template does provide some code to help provide new developers a base to work from, but what parts of the code are really necessary? We can boil “Hello Cube” down to something far simpler if we want to! This is the simplest possible StereoKit application:

using System;
using StereoKit;

class Program
{
	static void Main(string[] args)
	{
		if (!SK.Initialize(new SKSettings{ appName = "Project" }))
			Environment.Exit(1);

		while (SK.Step(() =>
		{
			Mesh.Cube.Draw(Material.Default, Matrix.S(0.1f));
		}));

		SK.Shutdown();
	}
}

Next Steps

Awesome! That’s pretty great, but what next? Why don’t we build some UI? Alternatively, you can check out the StereoKit Ink repository, which contains an XR ink-painting application written in about 220 lines of code! It’s well commented, and is a good example to pick through.

For additional learning resources, you can check out the Learning Resources page for a couple of repositories and links that may help you out. In particular, the Github repository does contain a number of small demo scenes that are excellent reference for a number of different StereoKit features!

And don’t forget to peek in the docs here! Most pages contain sample code that illustrates how a particular function or property is used in-context. The ultimate goal is to have a sample for 100% of the docs, so if you’re looking for one and it isn’t there, use the ‘Create an Issue’ link at the bottom of the web page to get it prioritized!

Found an issue with these docs, or have some additional questions? Create an Issue on Github!