James McCrae wants to lower the barrier to entry for creating virtual worlds with janusVR. He has a PhD in computer science from University of Toronto, and he’s created a sophisticated technology stack that allows front-end web developers to rapidly prototype interactive virtual worlds using a simple HTML-like markup language. These worlds are connected to each other through portals and provide an early look at what the metaverse might feel and look like.



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I caught up with James at the VRX Conference in San Francisco, and he talks about his vision and inspiration for creating janusVR. He wanted a simple markup language as well as the ability to drag and drop 2D or 3D content into a world while you’re in the world. He even has an in-world IDE where you can write code to create the virtual world while being within that same virtual world.

It’s amazing to see what type of creativity and experiences that have already started to be created within janusVR, including a replica of an A-10 airplane. There are also users who make videos of their guided tours of different janusVR destinations, as well as popular social hangout locations like The VR Bar.

It’s still pretty early for any type of open standards and single technology stack for determining how the metaverse is going to be built, but janusVR is helping lead the way by releasing some of their tools under the MIT license. High Fidelity has also been open sourcing their tools, but there are currently a lot more active janusVR virtual worlds that have already been creating.

James has a vast vision for what’s possible with the metaverse, and his approach has been to just dive in and start making it happen. You can check out this video to see what’s already possible with janusVR:

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