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Bryce Newell
All work

Professional · XR hand tracking · Dec 2022 – Aug 2024

Ultraleap Unity Plugin

Helping push Ultraleap's open-source Unity plugin to be the number one hand-tracking plugin for Unity.

  • Unity
  • C#
  • Hand tracking
  • MRTK 3
  • Unity XRI
  • XR Hands
  • Android VR
  • SOLID
The Unity editor showing a Physical Hands demo scene with interactive lab equipment.

The Unity editor showing a Physical Hands demo scene with interactive lab equipment.

Company
Ultraleap
Role
Unity Software Engineer
Period
Dec 2022 – Aug 2024
Platforms
All Android VR platforms and Windows standalone

Highlights

Physical Hands

A brand-new way to interact with the virtual world, integrating deeply with the Unity physics engine.

A tracked skeletal hand in a rock-on pose inside the pose editor.

A tracked skeletal hand in a rock-on pose inside the pose editor.

02

Pose detection

I worked nearly solo on bringing pose recording and detection to the plugin, with regular code reviews and input from UX designers.

A virtual hand using an XR UI panel with buttons, toggles and a scroll view.

A virtual hand using an XR UI panel with buttons, toggles and a scroll view.

03

Keeping up with the latest and greatest

I was integral in implementing support for MRTK 3, Unity XRI and XR Hands, keeping the plugin current with the wider XR ecosystem.

The story

My work at Ultraleap

As a Unity Software Engineer at Ultraleap from December 2022 to August 2024, I played a key role in the development and maintenance of the Ultraleap Unity Plugin for hand tracking. I created features and demos for customers and trade shows, contributing significantly to pose detection and the plugin's physical hands functionality. The work meant talking to low-level hardware APIs to implement new features and push the boundaries of hand tracking in Unity.

I kept the developer documentation comprehensive and current, including a major refactor, and built scalable tools using SOLID principles and Agile processes. I shipped applications for all Android VR platforms and Windows standalone, tightly integrated with MRTK, Unity XR Hands and Unity XRI, to advance what hand tracking can do in virtual reality.