Tuesday, 23 July, 2024 UTC
Summary
visionOS has a new environment called Lake Vrangla.
The environment takes Apple Vision Pro owners to the shore of a foggy lake in Norway. It's somewhat similar to the existing Lakeside environment, but the fog gives it a darker, almost eerie feel.
Lake Vrangla should appear available to download in the Environments tab on all Vision Pro headsets. It's not part of a new visionOS update.
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Environments on visionOS are somewhat analogous to desktop backgrounds on a Mac. When using any apps which run in the visionOS Shared Space you can choose between passthrough as the background, your chosen environment, or a midpoint of both by scrolling Vision Pro's Digital Crown dial on the top.
The nearby geometry in each environment is a very high quality photogrammetry scan that in some parts of some environments achieves photorealism. And as with passthrough, windows and 3D objects will cast realistic shadows onto the environment.
Since Apple Vision Pro's launch there have been six virtual environments:
- Haleakalā, the massive Hawain volcano
- Yosemite National Park in winter
- Joshua Tree National Park in summer
- A lakeside in front of Mount Hood
- White Sands National Park
- The surface of The Moon
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Scrolling Apple Vision Pro's Digital Crown transitions along the spectrum of mixed reality, seen here with the existing Lakeside environment.
Additionally, visionOS 2 is bringing a new environment called Bora Bora, bringing owners to the sands of a tropical beach on the French Polynesian island, and it's already available in the visionOS 2 beta releases.
With the release of Lake Vrangla visionOS 1 users now have seven virtual environments to choose from and visionOS 2 users now have eight.
Both Bora Bora and Lake Vrangla actually appeared in the Environments interface as unavailable thumbnails with Coming Soon text, so now all the teased environments have been released. It's unknown whether Apple plans to release any further environments any time soon.