In a major advancement for the Pixar-created Universal Scene Description (USD) file format for 3D content interoperability, some of the biggest names in technology are forming an alliance to bolster and advance the USD format.
Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA have announced this week, along with the Joint Development Foundation (JDF), an affiliate of the Linux Foundation, the formation of the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) to promote the standardization, development, evolution, and growth of Pixar’s Universal Scene Description technology.
USD
The USD format has been increasingly discussed here on Architosh and at rival AEC technology outlets. Its importance as a neutral and now open universal interoperability standard for the AEC industry may be promising.
The new Alliance for OpenUSD logo.
Created by Pixar Animation Studios, OpenUSD is a high-performance 3D scene description technology that offers very robust interoperability across digital applications (tools), data (geometric and non-geometric), and workflows (across multiple industries). USD is already extremely well-known in visual effects (VFX) and film and broadcast industry pipelines and less well-known in other industries like AEC/O. With its flexible nature and already stress-tested Hollywood pipelines, it is an ideal platform to be embraced by new industries and applications.
The Alliance
The alliance will develop written specifications detailing the features of OpenUSD. This will increase and ensure capability and wider adoption, integration, and implementation. Very importantly for the AEC/O industry, the inclusion of other standards bodies can also be incorporated into the OpenUSD specification. This will hopefully include the IFC standard for AEC/O.
The Linux Foundation’s JDF was chosen to house the project, as it will enable open, efficient, and effective development of OpenUSD specifications, while providing a path to recognition through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Support from the alliance is very strong.
Pixar
“Universal Scene Description was invented at Pixar and is the technological foundation of our state-of-the-art animation pipeline,” said Steve May, Chief Technology Officer at Pixar and Chairperson of AOUSD. “OpenUSD is based on years of research and application in Pixar filmmaking. We open-sourced the project in 2016, and the influence of OpenUSD now expands beyond film, visual effects, and animation and into other industries that increasingly rely on 3D data for media interchange. With the announcement of AOUSD, we signal the exciting next step: the continued evolution of OpenUSD as a technology and its position as an international standard.”
Adobe
“At Adobe, we believe in providing artists a set of flexible and powerful solutions running on a variety of devices,” said Guido Quaroni, Senior Director of Engineering, 3D&I at Adobe. “Leveraging a common 3D data representation during the creative process multiplies the value brought by each package and device. OpenUSD was created to be one of these ‘multipliers’ and we are excited to see a diverse group of companies joining together to support this innovative and open technology.”
Apple
“OpenUSD will help accelerate the next generation of AR experiences, from artistic creation to content delivery, and produce an ever-widening array of spatial computing applications,” said Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice president of the Vision Products Group. “Apple has been an active contributor to the development of USD, and it is an essential technology for the groundbreaking visionOS platform, as well as the new Reality Composer Pro developer tool. We look forward to fostering its growth into a broadly adopted standard.”
Autodesk
“Whether you’re building CG worlds or digital twins or looking ahead to the 3D web, content creators need a cohesive way to collaborate and share data across tools, services, and platforms,” said Gordon Bradley, Fellow, Media & Entertainment, Autodesk. “Autodesk is excited to support the Alliance for OpenUSD as it drives 3D interoperability for visual effects, animation, and beyond, and supports our vision to help customers design and make a better world.”
NVIDIA
“OpenUSD gives 3D developers, artists, and designers the complete foundation to tackle large-scale industrial, digital content creation, and simulation workloads with broad multi-app interoperability,” said Guy Martin, Director of Open Source and Standards at NVIDIA. “This alliance is a unique opportunity to accelerate OpenUSD collaboration globally by building formal standards across industries and initiatives to realize 3D worlds and industrial digitalization.”
AOUSD steering committee members will be speaking at both the Academy Software Foundation’s Open Source Days on Aug. 6 and at the SIGGRAPH conference at the Autodesk Vision Series on Aug. 8 at 1 p.m. PT in Room 404A.
To learn more about AOUSD and how to get involved, visit www.aousd.org. To tune into the Academy Software Foundation panel on USD on Aug. 6, 2023, visit the website.
