RP1 and the Metaverse Standards Forum™, through the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative (OMBI), introduced Sneeze, the first metaverse browser engine (MBE) ever built. Available immediately as open source under the Apache 2.0 license, Sneeze gives developers, enterprises, hardware manufacturers, and researchers the foundational technology to build the open metaverse.
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The web was not designed for proximity-based content, for real-time 3D services from dozens of independent operators in one scene, or for the kind of spatial infrastructure that AI, robotics, and AR glasses will demand. Sneeze was built to close that gap.
At the core of every web browser today sits an engine: Blink powers Chrome, Edge, and Brave; WebKit powers Safari; Gecko powers Firefox. Those engines were built for 2D documents. Sneeze is a new engine, purpose-built for spatial computing. Organizations can embed it into existing web browsers, giving them spatial capability alongside their current functionality, or use it to power standalone native metaverse browsers. Sneeze delivers capabilities the current web stack was never designed for: proximity-based service discovery, secure multi-origin 3D scene composition through the Scene Object Model (SOM), per-service WASM sandboxing for security isolation, and real-time co-presence for AI agents, AR glasses, and enterprise environments at scale.
Market forces are converging. Major technology companies are racing to ship AR glasses. Enterprises are deploying digital twins in airports, hospitals, and factories. AI agents and autonomous systems need a shared spatial layer to operate in. All of these require a common, open mechanism to connect to spatial experiences and services across devices, operators, and platforms, while retaining the same ownership and control as web infrastructure. No standards-based spatial platform exists today. Without one, every proprietary platform becomes a risk. The industry has watched it happen repeatedly: platforms that enterprises invested in were discontinued, deprecated, or acquired and shuttered, stranding the organizations that built on them. Sneeze gives the metaverse the same open foundation as the web: an engine built on open standards, owned by no single company, that any organization can build on reliably.
“Every major web browser runs on an engine like Blink or WebKit, and those engines were built for a world of flat pages,” said Dean Abramson, Co-Founder and Chief Architect of RP1. “We built our first metaverse experience as a working prototype on the current web stack and hit those limits firsthand. The web was not designed for proximity-based content, for real-time 3D services from dozens of independent operators in one scene, or for the kind of spatial infrastructure that AI, robotics, and AR glasses will demand. Sneeze was built to close that gap. Not to replace the web, but to add the capabilities the web needs for what comes next.”
How It Works
Sneeze enables self-hosted spatial content that works the same way the web does today. Organizations host their own spatial fabrics, the metaverse equivalent of websites, on their own infrastructure. Content is dropped on a server and the metaverse browser retrieves and displays it properly across any device – mobile, desktop, VR, and AR – separating content from delivery for the first time in 3D. No proprietary dependencies. No walled garden platform required.
The engine discovers and loads spatial content based on physical proximity. As someone moves through an airport, hospital, or factory, relevant content appears automatically without downloading multiple applications for each location.
Sneeze also makes shared immersive spaces seamless. Services from multiple organizations contribute to a single continuous scene through the Scene Object Model (SOM) while maintaining strict security boundaries through per-service WASM sandboxing. Each operator writes to its own branch of the scene graph, ensuring that no service can access another’s data or inject content into another’s space. Participants across AR glasses, VR headsets, phones, and desktops share the same spatial experience simultaneously with built-in presence, all without downloads or installations. To dive deeper into the OMBI architecture, visit omb.wiki.
Built on proven open standards
Sneeze builds on established open standards from multiple standards organizations, including existing internet standards (HTTPS, TCP/IP, DNS), the Khronos Group (ANARI, OpenXR, SPIR-V, glTF), the W3C (WebAssembly, Decentralized Identifiers), and OGC (GeoPose). What is new is the spatial composition layer: the SOM, the infrastructure for hosting and accessing real-time geolocated services, and the Sneeze engine itself, which makes multi-origin spatial scenes secure and performant.
“Enabling users to seamlessly connect with spatial services, AI, and other users as they journey through the real world is a compelling definition of the metaverse. The web is the only platform that has the reach and openness to make this vision real,” said Neil Trevett, President of the Khronos Group and Chair of the Metaverse Standards Forum. “Building the spatial web will need a constellation of standards from dozens of standards organizations. Enabling and fostering cooperative standardization is the reason the Forum exists, and building Sneeze under the OMBI is a perfect vehicle to catalyze, prototype, and deliver metaverse interoperability.”
“The world is moving from web infrastructure to spatial infrastructure, and the decisions being made now about which standards to build on will define the next decade of the internet,” said Sean Mann, Co-Founder and CEO of RP1 and member of the Metaverse Standards Forum board. “With Sneeze, any organization can start building spatial infrastructure on an open standard that cannot be discontinued by any single company. That is the same promise the web made thirty years ago, and it is the promise the metaverse must make now.”
The first metaverse browser on Sneeze is coming
RP1 is the lead architect and maintainer of Sneeze, having developed the engine through OMBI in coordination with the Metaverse Standards Forum. RP1 is now building the world’s first native metaverse browser powered by Sneeze, the first working proof that the open standard holds up in a real product, the same way Chrome was the first browser to demonstrate what Blink made possible. RP1 will share more details at AWE 2026 and in the weeks following.
Academia joins the effort: the Open Metaverse Academic Alliance
The University of Rochester’s Center for Extended Reality (CXR) has created the Open Metaverse Academic Alliance (OMAA), bringing universities and research institutions into the open standards work underway through OMBI. Member institutions conduct foundational research on the metaverse browser engine, contribute to the open-source Sneeze project, and prepare students and researchers for careers in spatial computing. The alliance also partners with enterprise organizations to facilitate research across industries and encourages participation from academic institutions worldwide.
“The open web was built in universities, and the metaverse should be too. The Open Metaverse Academic Alliance was created to bring universities and enterprise partners together to advance the open standards behind Sneeze and the Open Metaverse Browser Initiative, and to train the engineers who will build on them,” said Barry Silverstein, Director of the Center for Extended Reality at the University of Rochester. “We invite academic and industry partners worldwide to join us in ensuring spatial computing is shaped by open research and the next generation of talent, with interoperability as a core foundation.”
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