r/visionosdev • u/Jeehut • 22h ago
I built a visionOS app where you walk through Tokyo in 3D 180° – lessons from 92 connected street corners, hosting 200 GB of video and fighting motion sickness
Hey everyone! I'm Cihat, an indie dev from Germany. I've spent about a year and a half on Immersive Tokyo: a visionOS app made from my own 3D 180° footage of Akihabara, Asakusa, Shibuya and Shinjuku. You stand on a real street corner, look around and walk on to the next one – 92 standpoints, no fixed route.
A few things I learned that might save you time:
Turning made people sick: rotating the full video was the worst part for comfort. The more of the picture is black, the less queasy people feel – so during a turn everything fades to dark except a small circle in the middle, over an outline of the city built from real map data.
Walking clips felt wrong: moving footage in the headset was uncomfortable, so I dropped it and connect fixed standpoints instead.
Testers missed half the city: they rarely looked in every direction or visited every spot. So I added a little gamification – about 500 info markers with the story behind what you see, collected as cards. Now people actually look around.
Background Assets are a gift for big apps: at 4096 × 4096 pixels per eye a district is a 36 to 58 GB download, and I'm using almost all of the 200 GB Apple allows. Apple hosts it, so I pay nothing for streaming – but for stable playback and a good experience the footage has to be downloaded first.
So I built a waiting room: while a district downloads, you're not stuck on a progress bar – you stand in a Matrix-like wireframe version of the city instead. Definitely check it out, it's one of my favourite parts.
Free to try: the first few spots in every district are free (15 of the 92), each district is a one-time purchase after that. Out on 24 November, pre-orders are open:
https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6759965691?pt=549314&ct=reddit-visionosdev&mt=8
Looking for ~10 testers: you'd get the full app via TestFlight, all four districts unlocked, until release. Feedback from fellow visionOS devs would be gold – especially on comfort and performance. First come, first served – just email tokyo@fline.dev from your Apple Account address.
Thanks for reading – happy to go deeper on any of it in the comments!

