NVIDIA along with several other major players in the technology sector, have joined forces to create the Alliance for OpenUSD with the goal of unlocking the next era of 3D graphics, design and simulation, NVDIA announced Aug. 1. NVIDIA joins Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Pixar and the Linux Foundation's Joint Development Foundation (JDF) in the endeavor.
“By joining the alliance, we’re demonstrating our dedication to the advantages that OpenUSD provides our clients when linking with cloud-based platforms, including Nexus, Hexagon’s manufacturing platform, HxDR, Hexagon’s digital reality platform, and NVIDIA Omniverse to build innovative solutions in their industries,” Burkhard Boeckem, CTO of Hexagon, said in the release.
The alliance, operating under JDF, will standardize and expand OpenUSD, the free and open-source framework for universal scene descriptions that serves as the basis for a variety of 3D projects, from visual effects to industrial digital twins, according to the release.
Several important 3D industry players have already joined as the alliance's initial general members: Cesium, Epic Games, Foundry, Hexagon, IKEA, SideFX and Unity, the release reported. Standardizing OpenUSD will hasten its uptake and produce a core technology that will aid in the transition from the current 2D internet to a 3D one.
NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for networking and creating 3D tools and apps, is built on OpenUSD. Companies such as Heavy are helped by Omniverse. Building and testing physically accurate simulations of factories, stores, buildings, sports cars; other structures are done by Kroger, Siemens and AI, the release said.
OpenUSD represents "a nonproprietary standard format to author and store 3D content to connect our value chain even closer and develop home furnishing solutions to a lower price," Martin Enthed, an innovation manager at IKEA, said in the release.
Pixar began work on USD in 2012 as a foundation for its films, according to the release. Four years later, the company made technology open source, allowing anyone to use and contribute to it.
The prerequisites for creating virtual worlds, including as geometry, cameras, lights and materials, are supported by OpenUSD, the release reported. It has the capabilities for scaling to very large and complicated datasets, and it is incredibly flexible, allowing the technology to be applied to operations other than visual effects.
OpenUSD has a special layering mechanism that enables users to work together in real time without stepping on each other's toes. One artist might model a scene while another works on the lighting, for instance, according to the release.
The alliance's top objective will be to create a specification that outlines OpenUSD's fundamental features. That will offer a template that tool developers can apply, promoting acceptance of the open standard across the broadest range of use cases, the release noted.
The JDF offers a means of transforming textual specifications into commercial standards that can be accepted by internationally renowned organizations like the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, the release said.
