Looking Glass Bridge SDK · Python Edition

Integrate your existing Python-based 3D workflow with any Looking Glass display and treat the holographic panel as a second, light-field monitor. This package wraps the native Bridge SDK so you can render quilts in OpenGL, hand them off to Bridge, and see them instantly on the device – all without leaving Python.

Features

• Simple setup – use the included Looking Glass Bridge driver or download the latest version from the Looking Glass Bridge website.
• Cross-platform wheels – pre-built for Windows (x86-64), macOS (universal2), and manylinux (x86-64/arm64); each wheel already bundles the correct Bridge driver so you can pip install and go.
• Reference camera & quilt math – helper classes to distort projection matrices and assemble quilts.
• Examples included – RotatingCube.py and SolarSystem.py show minimal and advanced pipelines.
• Zero-copy texture path – pass existing OpenGL textures; no CPU read-backs required.

Installation

Setup a virtual environment:

# Create virtual environment in .venv (Linux)
python3 -m venv .venv

# Activate it
source .venv/bin/activate

# Create virtual environment in .venv (macOS)
python -m venv .venv

# Activate it
source .venv/bin/activate

# Create virtual environment in venv (Windows)
python -m venv venv

# Activate it
"venv\Scripts\activate"

pip install "bridge-python-sdk @ git+https://github.com/Looking-Glass/bridge-python-sdk"

For a quick burn in test, run one of the examples:

python -m bridge_python_sdk.Examples.SolarSystem
python -m bridge_python_sdk.Examples.RotatingCube
python -m bridge_python_sdk.Examples.DisplayQuilt /path/to/quilt_qs8x6a0.75.png
python -m bridge_python_sdk.Examples.DisplayRGBD /path/to/rgbd_image.png

Note: you will need to run the activate command again

Known issues:

DisplayQuilt and DisplayRGBD samples both support video, but currently not at full speed.

On Linux you must run under X11; Wayland is not yet supported.

Quick Start

See src/bridge_python_sdk/Examples for fully-worked programmes that spin a cube and orbit a solar system.

Tutorials

We have a few tutorials in the 'docs' folder, namely:

• Getting Started | Covers setting up a python environment and installing the sdk
• Displaying a Prerendered Quilt | Covers reading a quilt image from a file and displaying it
• Displaying a Prerendered RGBD | Covers reading an RGBD image from a file and displaying it
• Rendering a Quilt | Covers rendering a quilt in real time and displaying it

Prerequisites

Your application (or the provided examples) must be able to:

1. Render multiple views of the scene per frame.
2. Distort the projection matrix supplied by the SDK.
3. Render into an OpenGL texture that the SDK can access.

Documentation

• Camera model – learn how eye positions are generated for each view.
• Quilts – understand the tiled texture fed to Bridge.
• How Looking Glass works – deep dive into light-field rendering.

All docs live at https://docs.lookingglassfactory.com.

Support

• Email: support@lookingglassfactory.com
• Discord: https://discord.gg/2GvnNMQhxF
• Issues: https://github.com/Looking-Glass/bridge-python-sdk/issues

License

This SDK is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.