VK_EXT_metal_objects

Other Extension Metadata

Last Modified Date

2024-04-04

IP Status

No known IP claims.

Contributors

• Bill Hollings, The Brenwill Workshop Ltd.
• Dzmitry Malyshau, Mozilla Corp.

Description

In a Vulkan implementation that is layered on top of Metal on Apple device platforms, this extension provides the ability to import and export the underlying Metal objects associated with specific Vulkan objects.

As detailed in the extension proposal document, this extension adds one new Vulkan command, vkExportMetalObjectsEXT, to export underlying Metal objects from Vulkan objects, and supports importing the appropriate existing Metal objects when creating Vulkan objects of types VkDeviceMemory, VkImage, VkSemaphore, and VkEvent,

The intent is that this extension will be advertised and supported only on implementations that are layered on top of Metal on Apple device platforms.

New Base Types

• IOSurfaceRef
• MTLBuffer_id
• MTLCommandQueue_id
• MTLDevice_id
• MTLSharedEvent_id
• MTLTexture_id

New Commands

• vkExportMetalObjectsEXT

New Structures

• VkExportMetalObjectsInfoEXT
• Extending VkExportMetalObjectsInfoEXT:
  • VkExportMetalBufferInfoEXT
  • VkExportMetalCommandQueueInfoEXT
  • VkExportMetalDeviceInfoEXT
  • VkExportMetalIOSurfaceInfoEXT
  • VkExportMetalSharedEventInfoEXT
  • VkExportMetalTextureInfoEXT
• Extending VkImageCreateInfo:
  • VkImportMetalIOSurfaceInfoEXT
  • VkImportMetalTextureInfoEXT
• Extending VkInstanceCreateInfo, VkMemoryAllocateInfo, VkImageCreateInfo, VkImageViewCreateInfo, VkBufferViewCreateInfo, VkSemaphoreCreateInfo, VkEventCreateInfo:
  • VkExportMetalObjectCreateInfoEXT
• Extending VkMemoryAllocateInfo:
  • VkImportMetalBufferInfoEXT
• Extending VkSemaphoreCreateInfo, VkEventCreateInfo:
  • VkImportMetalSharedEventInfoEXT

New Enums

• VkExportMetalObjectTypeFlagBitsEXT

New Bitmasks

• VkExportMetalObjectTypeFlagsEXT

New Enum Constants

• VK_EXT_METAL_OBJECTS_EXTENSION_NAME
• VK_EXT_METAL_OBJECTS_SPEC_VERSION
• Extending VkStructureType:
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_BUFFER_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_COMMAND_QUEUE_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_DEVICE_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_IO_SURFACE_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_OBJECTS_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_OBJECT_CREATE_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_SHARED_EVENT_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_EXPORT_METAL_TEXTURE_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_IMPORT_METAL_BUFFER_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_IMPORT_METAL_IO_SURFACE_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_IMPORT_METAL_SHARED_EVENT_INFO_EXT
  • VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_IMPORT_METAL_TEXTURE_INFO_EXT

Issues

None.

Version History

• Revision 1, 2022-05-28 (Bill Hollings)
  • Initial draft.
  • Incorporated feedback from review by the Vulkan Working Group. Renamed many structures, moved import/export of MTLBuffer to VkDeviceMemory, added export of MTLSharedEvent, added import of MTLSharedEvent for VkSemaphore and VkEvent, and changed used bit mask fields to individual bit fields to simplify Valid Usage rules.
• Revision 2, 2024-04-04 (Bill Hollings)
  • Add an __unsafe_unretained ownership qualifier to all Metal object declarations, to support Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) on Apple devices.