🎬Studio for iOS

This app lets you load and play a variety of hologram image and video formats. You can:

• Load quilt images and videos generated using our Unity plugin or other creator tools

• Load RGBD images and videos generated with tools like Depth Anything, DepthCrafter, and Owl3D

• Load Cinematic videos shot on an iPhone 15 or later

Setup: loading calibration

To run LKG Studio, you must first select the calibration file for your Looking Glass device. When you run your application, you will be prompted to:

• Connect your device via USB-C

• Load a calibration file via the file browser. Calibration files are under Locations -> LKG-XXXXXX (your device serial number) -> LKG_calibration -> visual.json. Select the visual.json file

• Your calibration is now loaded — applications will store this for future use

Supported file types

Looking Glass Studio loads image and video files of quilts, RGBD, and Cinematic videos. It supports:

• MP4

• MOV

• JPG

• PNG

Content encoded to different formats (for example, WEBM) will need to be re-encoded. You can do so with an encoding tool like FFmpeg using the following command:

ffmpeg -i input.webm output.mp4

For 8K video content, it's recommended you use HEVC/H265, which can be done with the following command:

ffmpeg -i input.webm -c:v libx265 -c:a aac output.mp4

Loading Cinematic videos

Cinematic videos can be captured on iPhone 15+ devices. Earlier iPhone devices can also capture Cinematic video, but it is of lower quality, so we recommend capturing content on these more modern phones.

To capture a Cinematic video, open your Camera app on your iPhone and select "CINEMATIC" from the options.

Loading on iPhones

With your video captured, you now need to load it into your app. If you are using your Looking Glass device with an iPhone:

• Open Looking Glass Studio on your iOS device

• Select the "+" button

• Select "Open Cinematic Video"

• Select your Cinematic video from the displayed options

Loading on iPads

If you're using your device on an iPad, the process is trickier because you need to get the content onto your iPad. The easiest way to do so is via AirDrop, but you must follow specific steps in order to avoid the depth data being stripped out of the video, which Apple does by default.

As such, when running Looking Glass devices from an iPad, follow these steps:

• Open the Photos app on the iPhone

• Select the Cinematic video from your album

• Select the "Share" button

• Select "Options"

• Under "Format" select "All Data"

• Select "Done"

• Select "AirDrop"

• Find your iPad and select it

• Accept the file on your iPad

• Open Looking Glass Studio on your iOS device

• Select the "+" button

• Select "Open Cinematic Video"

• Select your Cinematic video from the displayed options

After a short delay, your content will appear on your Looking Glass device.

Loading RGBD images and videos

RGBD images and videos must have grayscale depth maps, and must be arranged with the depth data on the right and the color data on the left, as in the following image:

If your RGBD image/video appears as above, you're good to go! Simply make sure they are in your photo albums, press the "+" button in Looking Glass Studio, select "Open RGBD", and select the desired image or video. After a short delay, your content will appear on your Looking Glass device.

If you transferred your RGBD files to your iOS device using a file transfer system like Google Drive, you'll need to select the option to "Open Media from Files" as they will have downloaded to your iOS device storage rather than the Photos app.

Loading quilt images and videos

To load quilts, you must first get the file onto your iOS device. To do so, you can either use a file sharing service like Google Drive or, if you're on a MacOS device, you can use AirDrop.

Loading via AirDrop

• Navigate to your quilt file

• Select the "Share" button

• On iOS devices:

  • Select "Options"

  • Under "Format" select "All Data"

  • Select "Done"

• Select "AirDrop"

• Find your iOS device and select it

• Accept the file on your iOS device

• Open the Looking Glass Studio app

• Select the "+" button

• Select "Open Quilt"

• Select your quilt content from the displayed options

Loading via Google Drive

If you prefer to use a cloud service instead of AirDrop, you can transfer quilt files to your iOS device using Google Drive.

• Upload your quilt file to Google Drive from your computer or another device

• On your iOS device, open the Google Drive app and locate the quilt file

• Tap the three-dot ("⋯") menu next to the file

• Select "Open in" or "Send a copy"

• Scroll through the list of apps and select "Save to Files"

• Choose a location in the Files app and tap Save

• Open the Looking Glass Studio app on your iOS device

• Tap the "+" button

• Select "Open Quilt"

• Browse to the location where you saved the quilt file and select it

Playback controls

The playback control screen lets you control media playback, adjust settings, and add items to your playlist. It has different functionality for RGBD/Cinematic media and quilt media.

RGBD and Cinematic media

The above screen shows the playback controls for RGBD and Cinematic video content. From this screen, you can do the following:

• Tap and drag the rectangle to change the framing

• Pinch on the rectangle to zoom in and out

• Play and pause the video

• Use the focus slider to adjust what is on the focal plane

• Use the depthiness slider to increase or decrease the perceived depth of the content

• Flip the depth map by pressing the "Black to white" or "White to black" buttons

• Select "View Depth Map" to show the depth map rendering on the Looking Glass device

• Select "Add to Playlist" to add the current item, including its settings, to the playlist

• Press the "+" button in the main nav and select a new file to change the content that is playing

Quilt media

The above screen shows the playback controls for quilt content. From this screen, you can do the following:

• Tap and drag the rectangle to change the framing

• Pinch on the rectangle to zoom in and out

• Play and pause the video

• Use the focus slider to adjust what is on the focal plane

• Select "Add to Playlist" to add the current item, including its settings, to the playlist

• Press the "+" button in the main nav and select a new file to change the content that is playing

Playlist screen

To add content to your playlist, press the "Add to Playlist" button on the playback controls page. Currently, only one playlist is supported.

The playlist screen shows you current items in your playlist. You can access it by selecting the list view icon in the nav bar — the third from the left.

Once you are in the playlist screen, you can play media using the playback controls. There are options for play, pause, previous, next, loop, and stop. You can also rearrange items by dragging them using the drag handle (⠿) icon.

Tap on a playlist item to play and pause it, and edit it by selecting the pencil icon. This will return you to the playback control screen, allowing you to adjust depth, focus, and other settings.

Home screen

The home screen provides useful buttons to help you get started.

• "View Your Hologram" lets you load your own media for playback on the device

• "View Hologram Video Sample" begins playing a sample Cinematic video

• "How to use Cinematic mode" takes you to an Apple tutorial on how to capture Cinematic video

• "How to load RGB-D video" links you to this documentation page on loading RGBD media

• "Learn more about our products" takes you to our product overview page

• "General Help" takes you to this documentation page

Settings screen

The settings allow you to see information about your display (the serial number and resolution) and your iOS device's thermal state. It also provides controls to turn on or off the experimental renderer, access the debug screen, and show loaded calibration data.

Debug screen

This screen contains a number of controls that provide detailed control over your content and information about your media content and devices. It is intended for advanced users who need to better understand the state of their content and devices, and can be used for troubleshooting.

Options in the debug screen include:

• Display connection details — including serial number and resolution

• Option to reload calibration ("Load Calibration" button)

• Option to load media ("Load Cinematic Media" button)

• Options to change the rendering settings — switching to white to black depth ("W2B" button), black to white depth ("B2W" button), the new experimental renderer ("New" button), and the existing renderer ("Legacy" button)

• Options to enable and disable the depth rendering on the Looking Glass

• Framing controls — focus, depth, zoom, horizontal adjustment, and vertical adjustment

• Details on the currently playing media resolution

• Play, pause, and stop buttons

• iOS device thermal state information

Support

If you hit any issues, please contact our support team at [email protected] or contact us on Discord.