Industry leaders including Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, along with the Joint Development Foundation (JDF), a Linux Foundation affiliate, have formed the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD). This alliance aims to drive innovation, standardization, and the expansion of Pixar's groundbreaking Universal Scene Description (USD) technology.

AOUSD Vision: Standardizing the 3D Ecosystem.

AOUSD's mission is to revolutionize the 3D ecosystem by advancing the capabilities of Open Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD). This ambitious endeavor promotes greater interoperability among 3D tools and data through which developers and content creators can seamlessly describe, compose, and simulate large-scale 3D projects and usher in a new era of 3D-enabled products and services.

OpenUSD is a 3D scene description technology that was developed at Pixar Animation Studios. It is highly efficient and has excellent interoperability across various tools, data, and workflows. OpenUSD is widely used in the film, visual effects, and animation industries due to its ability to capture artistic expression and simplify content production. Additionally, its versatility has the potential to benefit new industries and applications.

Designing the Future Together

The alliance will create comprehensive specifications detailing OpenUSD's features, ensuring wider compatibility, adoption, integration, and implementation. These specifications will also pave the way for inclusion by other standards bodies into their own specifications. The Linux Foundation's JDF was selected to host this project, ensuring an open, efficient, and effective development process for OpenUSD specifications, with a potential path to recognition through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

AOUSD will also serve as the primary platform for collaborative enhancements to the technology by the wider industry. We invite companies and organizations across diverse sectors to join us in shaping the future of OpenUSD and 3D technology.

Words from Pioneers in the industry

Steve May, Chief Technology Officer at Pixar and chairperson of AOUSD shares his enthusiasm: "Universal Scene Description was invented at Pixar and is the technological foundation of our state-of-the-art animation pipeline... 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."

Gordon Bradley, Fellow, Media & Entertainment at Autodesk, adds, "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."

Guy Martin, Director of Open Source and Standards at NVIDIA, comments, "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."

Exciting times lie ahead as AOUSD embarks on a journey to redefine the 3D landscape.