VeleStudio

Service · XR & immersive experiences

Mixed reality development for Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro

VeleStudio develops passthrough mixed-reality applications for Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro in Unity, with scene understanding, occlusion and hand tracking.

Talk to VeleStudio →Read the FAQ
A woman wearing a HoloLens mixed reality headsetPhoto: Ecole polytechnique Universi · CC BY-SA 2.0

What it is

Mixed reality is a form of XR in which a headset shows the real room through its cameras and renders digital objects into that view so that they behave as if they were present: resting on the actual table, hidden behind the actual sofa, reacting to the user's actual hands. It differs from phone AR in field of view, stability and the freedom of both hands, and from VR in that the user never leaves their surroundings. Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro brought this to a broad market from 2023 onwards, and it is now the most capable form of augmented reality available.

Three capabilities make mixed reality work. Scene understanding lets the headset identify floors, walls, ceilings, tables and openings so content can be placed intelligently and persist between sessions. Occlusion lets real objects and hands hide virtual ones, which is what convinces the eye that an object is in the room rather than painted over it. Hand and eye tracking replace controllers with direct manipulation, so people can pick up, move and press things the way they already know how to.

VeleStudio develops mixed-reality applications in Unity for Quest 3 through the Meta Quest SDK and OpenXR, and for Vision Pro through visionOS and Unity PolySpatial. We design for the room the application will actually run in, whether that is a museum gallery, a training bay or a client's meeting room, because a mixed-reality experience is only as good as its relationship with the space around it.

What problems it solves

  1. 01

    Training that is dangerous, expensive or impossible to rehearse

    Procedures on live equipment, rare failures and hazardous environments can be practised on a virtual machine standing in the real workshop, with the trainee's actual hands and the actual surroundings intact.

  2. 02

    Objects and spaces that cannot be brought into the room

    A full-scale building, a reconstructed artefact or a product that does not exist yet can be placed on the floor in front of a client, a visitor or a committee, and walked around.

  3. 03

    VR that isolates and disorients

    Fully immersive VR cuts people off from colleagues and the room, which limits it in public and social settings. Passthrough keeps the group, the guide and the exit visible while adding the digital layer.

  4. 04

    Phone AR that is tiring and small

    Holding a phone up for more than a minute is uncomfortable and the window is narrow. A headset frees both hands and fills the visual field, which changes what kind of task is possible.

Who it is for

  • Museums and heritage organisations adding a headset layer to galleries
  • Industrial and energy companies training operators and technicians
  • Architecture, interiors and construction firms reviewing designs at full scale
  • Medical and life-science educators
  • Research labs and universities working on spatial interaction

Example applications

Object-anchored museum guides
Artefacts in a gallery recognised and annotated in place, with reconstructions, hidden details and narration that follows the visitor's gaze.
Room-scale training simulators
Virtual equipment placed in a real training bay so trainees practise with their hands, in context, with the instructor able to watch.
Architectural and product review
Models at 1:1 scale in the room where they will be built or used, with material options and sightlines checked by walking around.
Spatial collaboration
Shared anchors so that several people in the same room see and manipulate the same objects, for workshops and design reviews.
Assisted procedures
Hands-free, step-by-step guidance pinned to real machinery, with recognition of components and completion tracking.

How we approach Mixed Reality projects

  1. 01

    Room and task analysis

    We study the physical space, its lighting and reflective surfaces, and the task people must perform, because scene understanding and passthrough quality depend on the environment.

  2. 02

    Device selection

    Quest 3 or Vision Pro (or both), chosen on budget, audience, field of view, input needs and how the headsets will be managed on site.

  3. 03

    Spatial and interaction design

    Where content lives relative to walls, tables and people, how hands interact with it, and how the application reacts when the room changes.

  4. 04

    Passthrough prototype

    An early build in the real room with placeholder content, usually within a few weeks, to confirm anchoring, occlusion and comfort before investing in assets.

  5. 05

    Content production and optimisation

    3D assets built or scanned, then optimised for mobile headset budgets, with occlusion and lighting tuned so they sit convincingly in the passthrough view.

  6. 06

    On-site testing and deployment

    Sessions with first-time users in the actual venue, hygiene and fleet-management setup for shared headsets, and distribution via store or enterprise channels.

Technology we use

Tools chosen for the experience, not the other way round. The full ecosystem is on the expertise page.

Related work

All work →
A visitor trying a VR headset inside a colourful museum exhibition

01Mixed Reality, Cultural Heritage·Studio prototype, 2026

Object Stories: a mixed reality guide prototype for museum collections

A Quest 3 passthrough prototype that recognises museum objects and anchors stories, exploded views and provenance to each one, tested in the studio with replicas.

  • Unity
  • C#
  • Meta Quest SDK
  • OpenXR
A woman wearing a spatial computing headset, gesturing with her hands

02AI, XR·Studio prototype, 2026

Spatial Guide: an AI agent that answers questions about what you are looking at

A headset prototype where a visitor looks at an object, asks a question by voice and gets an answer grounded only in a curated knowledge base, pinned to the object.

  • Unity
  • C#
  • OpenXR
  • Meta Quest SDK

Further reading

XR · 5 min read

AR vs VR vs Mixed Reality: what is the difference?

AR overlays content on the real world, VR replaces it, and mixed reality lets virtual and real objects interact. A practical guide to choosing between them.

Profile of a man wearing a VR headset
Cultural Heritage · 6 min read

How museums can use AR and XR: a practical guide for cultural heritage

How museums and heritage sites use AR, VR and mixed reality: use cases, phones versus loan devices, curatorial constraints, content pipelines and pilots.

Visitors in a museum gallery with a large sculpture
Practice · 6 min read

How to prototype an XR experience

Why XR projects start with a prototype: a fidelity ladder from bodystorming to on-device slice, what to test at each stage and how to reach production.

A rough paper and cardboard prototype of an interface
Spatial Computing · 6 min read

What is spatial computing?

Spatial computing is computing that senses, maps and uses the physical space around a device, so digital content and interaction happen in place.

A woman wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset, raising her hand

FAQ

Questions about Mixed Reality

01What is mixed reality, and how is it different from AR and VR?
Mixed reality is a headset experience in which digital objects are placed in a live camera view of the real room and interact with it: they rest on surfaces, are hidden behind real objects and respond to the user's hands. AR on a phone overlays content on a small screen with less stability and one hand occupied; VR replaces the room entirely. Mixed reality keeps the surroundings and adds to them.
02Should we build for Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro?
Quest 3 is less expensive, easier to manage in fleets and has a mature SDK for passthrough, scene understanding and hand tracking, which makes it the usual choice for museums, training and events. Vision Pro has higher display resolution, excellent eye and hand input and strong appeal for premium showcases, at a much higher unit cost and with tighter development constraints through visionOS. VeleStudio can target both from one Unity project where the design allows it.
03Does mixed reality need a special room or markers?
No markers are required. Quest 3 and Vision Pro map the room with their own sensors and can recognise floors, walls and furniture. What they do need is reasonable lighting, some visual texture on surfaces and a space that does not change drastically between sessions. Highly reflective, dark or very empty rooms degrade tracking, and we check the actual venue before committing to a design.
04How do you anchor content to a specific object?
For static objects such as a museum artefact or a machine, we combine spatial anchors saved to the room with image or object recognition so the content snaps to the real item when it is seen. For objects that move, we use continuous tracking of the object itself where the platform supports it, or a hybrid where a tracked marker is hidden in the design. Which approach fits depends on the object's size, texture and how often it moves.
05Can several people share the same mixed-reality experience?
Yes. Shared spatial anchors let multiple headsets in the same room agree on where content is, so a group can see and manipulate the same objects. This requires a little network infrastructure and a calibration step, both of which we design into the experience rather than leaving to the venue.
06How long does a mixed-reality project take?
A passthrough prototype with placeholder content in the real room typically takes a few weeks. A finished application with produced 3D content, interaction polish and on-site testing commonly takes three to five months. Multi-user features, object recognition and integration with existing training or collection systems extend that.

Next step

Planning a mixed-reality application?

Tell us about the room, the objects and the people who will wear the headset. We will recommend Quest 3 or Vision Pro and describe what a first passthrough prototype would involve.

Prefer email? mrerfansol@gmail.com

Request a call