Using Passthrough Camera (Webcam Texture) in Unity

Introduction

In early 2025, Meta began allowing developers to access the camera feed from the Meta quest. This page is meant to give a quick overview of how to get started with accessing the passthrough cameras (webcam texture).   

Quick start!

Overview

Using this video tutorial and examples from Meta provided the best overview of how to get set up with the webcam texture for passthrough camera access, using the Meta examples, and starting a project from scratch. 

Tutorial

How to get started with camera access for Meta Quest 3 on Unity 6 - This video goes through both setting up the examples from the Oculus repository, as well as starting a project from scratch and adding the passthrough capabilities to it. 

How to get started with camera access for Meta Quest 3 on Unity 6 

Meta Example Repository

GitHub - oculus-samples/Unity-PassthroughCameraApiSamples: A Sample Project for Passthrough Camera API in Unity. 

 For a new project with camera access, here are the steps this tutorial goes through:

• Create a new universal 3D project (Using unity 6)

• Add build profile for android

• Go to player settings and change company name (optional)

• Install MR kit -- window, package manager, install by name

  • com.meta.xr.utilitykit

• Accept restarting the editor

• Edit project settings

  • Install XR plugin management

  • Add openXR plugin provider for both PC and android, enable feature set for Meta

• Under OpenXR plugin, add support for controllers and tracking

• Under project validation, fix all issues for PC and android

• Delete all items from scene

• Add Meta building block for camera rig, passthrough, and controllers/hand tracking as needed

• Check the project setup tool -- under Meta XR tools, can fix most except about the scene in your project. Ignore this so that it just asks for permission once instead of many times in your app

• Grab the passthroughcamera folder from the sample assets, which has ready made prefab for what we need

• Now, you can drag WebcamTextureManagerPrefab into the scene

  • In this prefab you can choose which camera you use, and the resolution

  • You can adjust the permission part here too, its preset with a script that will only ask for permission once

• Add a cube to the scene

• Create a mono behavior script

  • Name it webcamtextureassigner

  • Use the code below as this script

• Now assign the script to the cube

• Adjust the android manifest to make sure permissions work

  • Create stock compatible manifest

  • Add one line of uses-permission: "horizonos.permission.HEADSET_CAMERA"

• Save scene and now you can build!
  
  

Code for script:

using PassthroughCameraSamples;

using System.Collections;

using UnityEngine;

/// <summary>

/// Assigns the <see cref="WebCamTexture"/> of the Quest camera

/// to the <see cref="Renderer"/> component of the current game object.

/// </summary>

[RequireComponent(typeof(Renderer))]

public class WebcamTextureAssigner : MonoBehaviour

{

    /// <summary>

    /// Start coroutine

    /// </summary>

    /// <returns></returns>

    IEnumerator Start()

    {

        //references that will be filled by the coroutine

        WebCamTextureManager webCamTextureManager = null;

        WebCamTexture webCamTexture = null;

        //wait until the WebCamTextureManager is found and is ready to provide a texture

        do

        {

            yield return null;

            //if the WebCamTextureManager is not found yet, find it

            if (webCamTextureManager == null)

            {

                webCamTextureManager = FindFirstObjectByType<WebCamTextureManager>();

            }

            //else, if we have it, try to get the texture of the camera of the headset

            else

            {

                webCamTexture = webCamTextureManager.WebCamTexture;

            }

        } while (webCamTexture == null);

        //here we have the texture. Assign it to the main texture of the main material of the renderer

        GetComponent<Renderer>().material.mainTexture = webCamTexture;

    }

}

From following this tutorial, you can create a cube that uses the passthrough camera's texture: