Alliance for OpenUSD Announces New Rotating Steering Committee Members and Expanded Industry Collaborations

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. —November 19, 2024—The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) today announced the election of its first rotating steering committee members, welcomed three new general members, formed new liaison relationships, established a new Physics Working Group, shared progress from Working Groups, and provided updates on OpenUSD development.

Formed in 2023, AOUSD is an organization dedicated to fostering the standardization, development, evolution, and growth of OpenUSD, an extensible framework for describing, composing, simulating, and collaboratively navigating and constructing 3D scenes.

New Steering Committee Rotating Members

AOUSD is pleased to announce its first two rotating steering members: SideFX's Mark Tucker, Senior Software Architect for a three-year term, and Trimble's Sean Snyders, Research Manager, for a two-year term. The staggered rotation ensures an annual infusion of fresh perspectives into the steering committee and promotes diversity and broader participation in AOUSD's leadership.

The selection process adhered to AOUSD's commitment to inclusivity and due process. Eligible general members submitted nomination questionnaires, followed by a comprehensive two-week review period allowing all general members to provide feedback on candidates. The final selection was made by AOUSD's founding members.

"The introduction of rotating steering members marks a new milestone for AOUSD," said Steve May, Chairperson at AOUSD. "This structure ensures broader and more diverse industry perspectives, crucial for the ongoing evolution and adoption of OpenUSD across various sectors."

The newly elected rotating members will join the existing steering committee in driving AOUSD's mission to foster the standardization, development, and growth of Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD). Their unique insights and experiences from SideFX and Trimble are expected to contribute significantly to AOUSD's initiatives in expanding OpenUSD's applications across industries such as Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Industrial Manufacturing, and Media and Entertainment.

New Members 

AOUSD is proud to welcome three new general members—Cadence, Foxconn, and Pickford. Their expertise in digital twins, AI infrastructure, and smart manufacturing will help drive innovation in the OpenUSD ecosystem. Learn more about becoming a member of AOUSD today.

New Liaison Relationships 

AOUSD continues to expand its collaborative network through strategic liaison relationships with key industry organizations. The Alliance today announced new partnerships with the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), buildingSMART International, and the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). 

These relationships will strengthen OpenUSD's adoption across Manufacturing, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Multimedia Technology sectors while ensuring alignment with existing industry standards and best practices.

AMT

The Alliance's collaboration with the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) focuses on leveraging OpenUSD for discrete manufacturing applications. This strategic liaison relationship aims to integrate AOUSD's standards with AMT's industry expertise. By participating in the Alliance’s Working Groups, AMT contributes valuable insights from the manufacturing sector, ensuring that OpenUSD evolves to meet the specific needs of industrial applications. 

“This liaison between AMT and AOUSD aligns our efforts on world class 3D technology in discrete manufacturing. Industrial interoperability is a perpetual challenge to AMT's members and their customers, and data interchange standardization helps companies focus on value-add features over basic compatibility. We are optimistic about the future of 3D content creation and utilization in manufacturing and across industrial sectors.” - Doug Woods, President of the Association for Manufacturing Technology

buildingSMART International 

The Alliance's liaison with buildingSMART International aims to align OpenUSD capabilities with the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard, enhancing interoperability in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. The collaboration explores synergies between OpenUSD and IFC, particularly in areas such as 3D modeling in cloud environments, efficient geometry representation, and the evolution of AEC data exchange standards. Learn more about our partnership with buildingSMART International.

"This liaison agreement with the Alliance for OpenUSD is exciting as it allows us to bring together different perspectives to tackle the challenges of data access and interoperability. The opportunity to work alongside AOUSD as we deliver the next phases of our Technical Roadmap is invaluable.” - Clive Billiald, Chief Executive of buildingSMART International

AOMedia

This liaison agreement between the AOUSD and the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) eases the path to bringing advanced coding and streaming techniques to the OpenUSD ecosystem, through the exchange of technical information and collaboration between their respective Working Groups. Learn more about our partnership with AOMedia.

"This liaison between AOMedia and AOUSD brings our expertise in open multimedia technologies to OpenUSD capabilities. By aligning our development efforts and sharing technical insights, we can better address the needs for efficient volumetric visual media delivery while maintaining our commitment to open standards,” - Shan Liu, Co-Chair of AOMedia’s VVM Working Group.

New Working Group 

The Alliance continues to drive technical standards in critical areas of OpenUSD, with the formation of a new Physics Working Group, which will build a normative specification for the existing OpenUSD physics schema for the scene description of rigid bodies, which was co-developed by Apple, Pixar & NVIDIA. Additionally, this group will take the lead on exploring and standardizing physics scene description schemas for soft-body/deformables.

AOUSD Working Groups Progress

Core Specification Working Group 

The Core Specification Working Group has achieved several significant milestones since August 2024. A key advancement is the implementation of PEGTL (Parsing Expression Grammar Template Library) in OpenUSD v24.11’s USDA Grammar, establishing clear and modular rules for human-readable USD content interpretation. The group has initiated sample implementation and compliance testing for the composition engine, with Python code that clarifies the LIVRPS algorithm—fundamental to OpenUSD's data aggregation capabilities.

The Working Group has also drafted normative specifications for animation spline interpolation, enabling fine-grained control for creators developing nuanced behaviors in animated characters and digital humans. Additionally, they have enhanced the specification of listOps, a unique OpenUSD data type essential for managing ordered data elements across layer stacks, particularly valuable in workflows ranging from animated feature films to industrial digital twins. The group has also begun exploring automated documentation builds and diagram generation to improve technical content accessibility.

These developments bring broader understanding of foundational concepts and expert guidance for implementing OpenUSD-compliant systems. For the industry at large, this work formalizes the principles of data interoperability for virtual worlds in normative language, while extending concepts like listOps and composition beyond visual effects into industries with specific data and behavioral requirements.

Materials Working Group

The Materials Working Group, representing diverse interests across the USD ecosystem, has embarked on an ambitious initiative to standardize the MaterialX standard library of shader nodes in USD as an ISO specification. This effort will ensure consistent and validated material representation across all OpenUSD-compliant implementations, enabling users to seamlessly transfer physically accurate materials between applications.

The Working Group has established its operational framework and begun drafting precise, normative specifications for standard library nodes. These specifications will be proposed to the MaterialX project for incorporation into their documentation. With completion targeted for early 2025, the group will then transition to developing the ISO specification, marking a crucial step toward unified material standards across the industry.

New OpenUSD Release

OpenUSD v24.11 is now available, marking significant progress in making OpenUSD more accessible and powerful across industries. This release demonstrates the growing global collaboration in 3D content creation and sharing.

A major milestone is the complete removal of the Boost dependency, significantly simplifying development and integration workflows. The release introduces new performance benchmarking standards and a formal security advisory system on GitHub, enhancing transparency and trust in the ecosystem.

The update brings important advances in mobile and AR development, with new imaging support for iOS and visionOS platforms, and AVIF format support in USDZ for optimized AR experiences. Additionally, the new UsdSemantics schema enables improved AI and machine learning capabilities for 3D scene understanding.

The Validation Framework continues to evolve with enhanced error reporting and new Python bindings, making it easier for developers and creators to ensure content quality across disciplines.

Supporting Quotes from New Members

Cadence

“Digital twins for data centers and physical AI are essential to pave the way for the AI revolution without impacting global resources. We’re excited to join AOUSD to help extend digital twinning to the AI infrastructure,” said Ben Gu, Corporate Vice President for Multiphysics System Analysis at Cadence. “The systems that change the world are not creations of one individual or company alone. Cadence brings a long history of leadership in both design automation and contributions to global standards bodies. Open and effective technical standards are the backbone for innovation and will enable us to deliver the benefits of AI to the globe, together.”

Foxconn

“Foxconn’s manufacturing excellence is increasingly incorporating technologies using artificial intelligence and digital twins, requiring 3D industrial applications,” said Dr. Zhe Shi, Foxconn’s Chief Digital Officer and head of its Smart Manufacturing platform. “By partnering with AOUSD, Foxconn can participate in the research and development of related software technologies of our partners and promote the spirit of open source sharing.”

Pickford 

"As the first AI startup invited to join OpenUSD, we’re looking forward to contributing not just with our unique perspective, but also with a long-term vision for where this industry can go. We believe that AI and 3D go hand-in-hand, but until now higher dimensionalities have been out of reach. Our work with OpenUSD will enable us to unlock those technical limitations and usher in a new paradigm for 3D world-building," said Cole Clifford, Co-Founder of Pickford.

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About the Alliance for OpenUSD

The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) is an open organization dedicated to fostering the interoperability of 3D content through OpenUSD to enable developers and content creators to more easily describe, compose, and simulate large-scale 3D projects. The Alliance brings together a diverse and inclusive community to provide an open forum for collaborative development and discussion around the standardization, development, and growth of OpenUSD.

Media Contact:

pr@aousd.org