8th Wall Integration

Protocol Content Layer
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Creating a thread to track how we can integrate 8th Wall into the Geo Web.

From Discord:

Hey everyone! I've been doing some research on 8th wall after Schuyler shared it with us and wanted to share some of my findings on how it could integrate with the Geo Web.

8th wall has three ways to host a WebAR app at various price points. 1) Hosted by 8th wall 2) Custom domain + 8th wall hosted 3) Self hosted, with list of approved domains

We currently have a way to attach URLs to a Geo Web parcel, and load that URL via an iframe in the geoweb.app browser. After some experiments, it appears that 8th wall hosted apps will not load in an iframe. They can still be linked to, but they have to be opened in a separate tab.

However, self hosted apps (3) appear to load in an iframe correctly. So today, a land owner could create a self-hosted WebAR app via 8th wall and point a parcel to it. Users could then use the app inline via geoweb.app browser. Unfortunately, self-hosted apps require a pro subscription of $120/month.

There could be a way to load arbitrary WebAR apps in geoweb.app, using an API key owned by geoweb.app and not the land owner. This will still need an iframe for security reasons. I am looking into loading an app from an IPFS gateway, or possibly loading it directly into an iframe, or even using a service worker to run a local IPFS gateway at geoweb.app.

And yet another option would be to run a WebAR app inside of geoweb.app, and load content in some way that is specific to Geo Web. For example, we could have essentially a template that allows land owners to upload GLB objects all with some origin relative to a Lightship GLB origin. Then geoweb.app runs the template, not in an iframe, to place geo-anchored content.

Perhaps we should make a forum post for better discussion, but I’m curious to here anyone’s thoughts on the above or anything else that others have found.

Questions to answer

  • Can 8th wall demo apps run in an iframe? Yes
  • Can 8th wall demo apps run in geoweb.app? Yes
  • Can custom 8th wall hosted apps run in geoweb.app? Yes
  • Can a demo Lightship VPS 8th wall app run in geoweb.app? Yes. Needed to add geolocation permission to iframe.
  • Can a custom Lightship VPS 8th wall app run in geoweb.app? Yes
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I have not been able to get a custom app working in an iframe. I’m not sure if the issue is because it is custom, or because of something with Lightship VPS or location permissions. I am going to try cloning the existing project here and see if it will still run as a custom app.

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I was able to get a custom 8th Wall hosted app to run in the browser. Using Safari on iOS.

This required some updates to the iframe in the browser, but nothing about the 8th wall app is Geo Web specific.

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Something of note, this demo is using A-Frame. From their docs:

A-Frame supports most modern mobile browsers that don’t have WebXR support through the [WebVR polyfill](https://github.com/googlevr/webvr-polyfill). Note that these browsers do not have official WebXR support, and we are using a polyfill; it is important to lower the expectations that these browsers will provide a quality experience and not have quirks:
  • Safari for iOS
  • Chrome for Android
  • Firefox for iOS
  • Samsung Internet
  • UC Browser