Meta Reality Labs / Developer tools
Meta Quest Passthrough Camera API
Helping bring developer camera access to Quest, from early prototypes to Unity integration.
- Contribution
- Early prototyping and feedback on the Unity integration
Prior work at Meta Reality Labs. Team scope: advocacy and Unity integration. Individual contribution: early prototyping and integration feedback. QuestCameraKit: independent open-source project.
Public API and developer resources / 2025
The challenge
Access to Quest’s passthrough cameras was the most requested feature from developers our team worked with. They wanted to build interactions that could understand and respond to the physical world, but needed direct access to camera frames.
The work
Our team at Meta Reality Labs championed developer camera access, secured leadership support and helped move the Passthrough Camera API into development. The team built the Unity integration. Our individual contribution focused on early prototypes and hands-on integration feedback. We also created QuestCameraKit independently, extending the API with open-source examples for colour sampling, QR detection and computer vision.
- Early camera-access prototypes
- Hands-on feedback for the team’s Unity integration
- Independent QuestCameraKit colour sampling, QR detection and computer vision examples
The result
The Passthrough Camera API opened Quest camera access to developers, supported by official Unity samples and documentation. QuestCameraKit adds an independent, practical starting point for exploring camera-driven interactions.