I’m interested in developing an overlay application using OpenXR and CPP, and I’d rather not use OpenVR (IVROverlay). Do you have any suggestions?
@mbucchia1, are you familiar with utilizing the OpenXR-OverlayLayer extension (GitHub - LunarG/OpenXR-OverlayLayer: Implementation of the OpenXR Overlay extension as a layer)?
Thanks.
The EXTX_overlay API layer has been abandoned for 3 years (it’s not even based on OpenXR 1.0), it can work with some hacks, but it’s very awkward. I forked it in the past and tried to make it work reliably, it’s real PITA, and not terribly efficient.
Instead I developed my own thing, even wrote a tutorial. It still has quite a few shortcomings.
I sort of given up on overlays as API layers, there are too many caveats. This feature truly must be implemented inside the OpenXR runtime to work reliably. So instead I’m just looking into integrating overlays into my OpenXR runtime (which is the one for Virtual Desktop, so that won’t work generically for all platforms).
It’s a huge gap that platforms vendors have created here, and I’m not seeing much interest in the past 3 years from anyone in the group to address it 
We support XR_EXTX_overlay in monado, but of course that doesn’t help people who use other runtimes.
For SteamVR there’s an old feature request here
EXTX_overlay is overkill for what 98% of people want to do IMO, we really need something focused on secondary app processes ability to submit quad/cylinder with a limited degree of interactability.
EXTX_overlay mandating full OpenXR core spec and extensions support is just a turn down to implement if you don’t have a proper multiclient compositor and tracking service. Narrowing down the scope would be much helpful.
I am checking out your repo and would like to help complete it. Can you advise on this?
Can you check your LinkedIn?
I read this post and tried to use XR_EXTX_overlay in Steam VR, but I don’t know how to enable it (I found error “XR_EXTX_overlay is not supported”). Do you have any suggestions to enable it properly?
SteamVR doesn’t support the extension. The thread in the steam forums is where people ask Valve to support for the extension. You can add your voice there if you want.