Valve's VR programmer, Joe Ludwig, is developing an open-source platform called Aardvark, which aims to bring AR-like utility programs to virtual reality. Aardvark is an evolution of the VR control panel extension that injects new features into interactive and spatially-aware "widgets" that can run within any VR application.
Ludwig has been involved in VR projects at Valve from the early days, and recently, he has focused on the open-source project Aardvark, which allows lightweight spatial applications to run inside virtual reality as an "intermediate layer" to bring augmented reality into virtual reality.
Aardvark is still in the early stages of development and mostly consists of basic example widgets. However, Ludwig demonstrated their functionality and effectiveness in a VR environment.
Aardvark is similar to a web application, where widgets' functionality is defined similarly to web pages, and Aardvark acts as the "browser" that renders them in virtual space. However, unlike WebXR, Aardvark directly renders its complete scenes for better performance and scalability.
The project is currently looking for participants to try building their own widgets and contribute to the underlying platform on GitHub.