Niantic Spatial has now made its WebAR creation platform ‘8th Wall’ free and open source, which also comes alongside a shutdown of hosted services.
Previously a paid service, 8th Wall allows users to create Web-based XR content for a variety of target devices, including smartphones, computers and XR headsets.
Now, as a part of releasing the underlying codebase, the company has officially shut down hosted services, including user logins, the cloud editor, and the web-based XR Studio.
The transition has been rolled out in stages, the company says in a recent blog post. In January, the team released the Distributed Engine Binary, which includes simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) under a binary-only license for both commercial and noncommercial use. However, certain capabilities, such as VPS, Maps, and Hand Tracking, were not included.
Now, the newly released open source version of the engine framework is available under an MIT license, though this does not include SLAM. Instead, it provides the core architecture and major AR modules, including Face Effects, Image Targets, and Sky Effects, the company says.
The team behind 8th Wall says we can expect further releases to include documentation, desktop tools, and runtime components the coming weeks as the project continues its transition to a community-driven open source model.
Niantic acquired 8th Wall in 2022 as part of its push to build a broader AR developer ecosystem around its Lightship ARDK platform. At the time, the company said it was its “largest acquisition to date.” Shortly after the deal went through, 8th Wall became part of Niantic’s developer stack, integrating into its Lightship as a standalone product.
Since then, Niantic sold off of its gaming division for $3.85 billion to Saudi Arabia-owned mobile game developer Scopley, which included the transfer of the company’s most well-known titles, including Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now.
In turn, this has left Niantic Spatial to operate as a separate, independently-owned spin-off focused on geospatial AI and XR technologies.
