I was able to attend the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC) and focused on the Extended Reality (XR) track. At the very least, it was clear that attendees were enthusiastic about using Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) format as an exchange format for the metaverse and XR in general.

There is a great need for a common format

Companies as diverse as Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Lowe’s, Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, and of course NVIDIA and Pixar are looking to use USD. This is because USD is more than just a way to describe 3D objects. Pixar needed an effective way for a large number of collaborators to simultaneously make changes to different elements in the same scene at the same time. The layers and composability of USD give it an advantage compared to other formats, which…