1 Getting to know OpenUSD
This chapter covers
- Gaining an overview of OpenUSD
- A high level look at OpenUSD's core features.
- Exploring OpenUSD’s impact, trends, challenges, and opportunities
- Examining some examples of OpenUSD in action
- A glimpse into the potential future of OpenUSD
Though Universal Scene Description (USD) was initially developed in 2012 by Pixar to streamline production of its animated movies, the practical applications of USD have proved to extend well beyond their industry. Pixar created USD to synchronize, and manage large and complex 3D scenes that required input from multiple artists concurrently. In 2016, Pixar open-sourced USD, sparking interest across the many industries beginning to explore the potential of 3D graphical applications. Because of its open-source nature, it is now called OpenUSD.
Recognizing OpenUSD’s potential, The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) formed in 2023 specifically to promote interoperability across all forms of 3D content. Central to that aim is the standardization of OpenUSD's specifications and the development of new functionality to add to any existing implementations in Pixar's original repository. As well as Pixar themselves, the AOUSD has many large organizations as members, including Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, NVIDIA, Intel, Epic Games, Siemens, Meta, and Sony, amongst others and the list is continuously growing.[1]