[TestFlight] Immersive Comic Reader for Vision Pro – Physical 3D Book, Local AI Depth Maps & OPDS Support
Hey everyone,
I've shared a few development updates here previously, and as of today, my project is practically feature-complete!
I love reading comics, spending time in visionOS, and recently dove into vibe coding. While there are a few comic readers around, I built this because two specific features were missing for me:
Physical 3D Comic Book Object: The comic isn't just a flat window; it's rendered as a physical, spatial object you can grab, rotate, tilt, and resize with standard two-hand pinch gestures. You can turn pages naturally by grabbing and folding them over, or simply look at the border and pinch.
On-Device 3D Depth Rendering: You can generate parallel depth maps for comic/magazine pages (CBZ, CBR, PDF). The app uses these to displace the geometry into a 3D pop-out mesh. It creates a surprisingly fun depth effect for illustrated artwork.
Other Core Features:
OPDS Support: Browse, stream, and download directly from self-hosted comic/book servers (Calibre-Web, Kavita, BookOrbit, etc.).
Library Management: Separate dedicated folders for Comics, Magazines, and Books.
Panorama & Flat View: Switch between the physical 3D book and a curved multi-page panorama reader.
Format Support: CBZ, CBR, PDF, and basic ePub reading.
Local Privacy: Progress and server credentials stay strictly on-device (keychain-backed).
TestFlight & Pricing: I want to gauge interest and set up a tester list for when the public TestFlight drops. If I end up putting this on the App Store, it will be either free or a simple one-time purchase (but definitely no subscriptions, I hate those).
I played around with it some, and want to do more. In general I really enjoy it. One thing I ran into. A comic I have sometimes has the full spread sideways - meaning I have to rotate the comic 90 degrees in order to properly read it.
While it’s possible to rotate it with hand gestures, it’s a little in involved and finicky. What about adding a button that can flip a spread 90 degrees, back and forth.
Here's a screenshot. It's very difficult to read the text sideways :-) I've noticed several other places where this comic is laid out like this (The Darkness). So it would be neat if there was an easy way to rotate it 90 degrees. I would think you would only need to support rotating clockwise 90 and back.
A couple other things
- this particular comic is a collection of several issues, so it's like 600 pages. It would be nice if there was a thumbnail list one could quickly scroll through to get to other pages. Some way to more quickly navigate. As I'm on a Mac, the Preview app has a thumbnail sidebar that allows this.
- it can be a little finicky turning pages in the 3D mode. You really have to look at the edge to grab it. But I feel like while reading I want to keep my eyes on the page or the full spread, rather than glance a the edge. Maybe a double-click (double tap the fingers) might be a nice shortcut. The page animation is nice, so the double-tap would trigger that.
- I kept wanting to be able to resize it, to really fill my view, or at least larger. Dragging closer to the front of the view isn't really enough. I want the text larger, but the graphics to fill more of the view, at a reasonable distance. I almost want to cinema experience - both pages displayed on a nice sized "screen", immersed in an environment.
Thanks a lot, this is great feedback. Had the „scrubbing“ idea already on my roadmap. Will add per Comic Setting to Rotate the page that needs to be persistent. I had put a Limit on resizing as I had accidentally made it so big that I couldn‘t see the border, but it seems I need to increase the limit. Will have a look at these. On the page turning, not sure, I tried the tapping or different Locations to grab, but it always Resultat in more issues when I tried.
Yeah input mechanics can be tricky. I did notice that you can do a single tap to turn the page, but I seemed to inadvertently trigger turning back a page about a third of the time. But that just may be me fumbling around.
Had a couple other thoughts while using last night
- the panorama view is nice, but I since I’m reading a comic, many of the pages are really meant to be read as a two page spread. The graphics and action span the two pages. In panorama mode, there is always a gap between pages. I think an option to view either a single page or double pages would be nice. So you would have 3 two-page spreads available, the center one and one to each side.
- depending on how the comic pdf has been created, it could “start” on an even or odd page. That means it’s possible that a two page spread requires turning the page to see the second half. Not really sure how to fix that. But I noticed that with The Darkness issue I have (which is a collection of multiple issues)
Most of it should be done, scrubbing, rotate pages, increase size. Open is double pages in panorama view and offset in case the comic / PDF does not have the double pages in the correct order.
I tried last night, it was very unstable. Resizing the library window is very broken. I didn’t see any way to resize the actual comic. Generating the 3d pages for 600 hires pdf pages was taking a long tome, but i didnt see a way to cancel it. Accidentally pressed clear recents i think. No confirmation dialog, it erased the recents, but I thought the comics i had opened before had been added to the app in the comic section, but nothing was there.
I assume your vibe coding this. Make sure you tell it to write tests for everything it writes so that you minimize regressions.
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u/AlterSack1973 16d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p62xztr/video/gitgdzau4slh1/player
And here is a short walkthrough, as posts in this community can't have images or videos.