The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) has unveiled a roadmap outlining its journey towards establishing OpenUSD (Universal Scene Description) as an international standard.
AOUSD’s two-year roadmap is a strategic plan to make OpenUSD an international standard for interoperability in describing 3D scenes and environments.
The Core Specification working group, a key component of this roadmap, will lay the foundation for OpenUSD by defining the structure and interpretation of low-level data. This step ensures portability and interoperability across various software platforms and devices.
Steve May, Chief Technology Officer at Pixar and Chairperson of AOUSD, said: “The new roadmap shared today shows the progress the alliance is making and unveils milestones and planned expansions over the next year to ensure interoperability and collaboration.”
New members and collaboration
AOUSD’s expansion includes welcoming 12 new general members, including Cesium, Chaos, Epic Games, Foundry, Hexagon, IKEA, Lowe’s, Meta, OTOY, SideFX, Spatial, and Unity.
AOUSD has also formed a liaison relationship with the Khronos Group, fostering collaboration to align OpenUSD with Khronos’ widely adopted 3D asset open standard glTF.
Collaboration between AOUSD and the Khronos Group aims to ensure better compatibility between OpenUSD and glTF, avoiding needless incompatibilities and enabling seamless interoperation between the two technologies.
Neil Trevett, President of The Khronos Group and VP of Developer Ecosystems at NVIDIA, commented: “The Khronos Group warmly welcomes AOUSD to the community of open standard organisations.
“We look forward to a close cooperation so that Khronos standards, including glTF, can support and synergise with AOUSD’s mission for the good of the industry.”
Other key industry players have expressed their support for AOUSD and the OpenUSD standardisation effort.
Amir Frenkel, VP XR Tech at Meta, said: “Building key interoperability for the metaverse will require an industry-wide focus on common standards, formats, and protocols. The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) can help drive the collaboration that’s needed to make this possible and Meta is dedicated to this work.
“Creators, developers, and companies will benefit from the technologies and experiences that will be made possible by open standards for 3D content.”
Sebastien Miglio, VP of Product Management and Engineering at Epic Games, added: “Epic Games recognises the significance of USD in establishing standards for 3D content, virtual worlds, and the open metaverse.
“We are excited to support the Alliance for OpenUSD in its mission to standardise USD, which will propel the technology to new levels of standardisation, improve interoperability with other tools, and accelerate innovation across industries.”
These endorsements reflect the industry’s recognition of AOUSD’s mission and the potential benefits of OpenUSD standardisation.
(Photo by Karsten Würth on Unsplash)
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