Universal Scene
Description

An open and extensible ecosystem for 3D worlds.

Building the Open Metaverse With
Universal Scene Description

Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) is more than just a file format, it’s an open and extensible ecosystem for describing, composing, simulating, and collaborating within 3D worlds.

Originally invented by Pixar Animation Studio, USD’s design and features have positioned it to become the open standard that enables the 3D evolution of the internet, the metaverse.

OpenUSD encompasses a collection of fundamental tools and capabilities that accelerate workflows, teams, and projects, whether you are creating assets and environments for large-scale, connected virtual worlds or building the tools that will make these worlds possible.

The Benefits of OpenUSD

m48-software-stack-container

Provides a unique, open, extensible framework and ecosystem with APIs for composing, editing, querying, rendering, collaborating, and simulating within 3D virtual worlds.

m48-people-network

Enables non-destructive workflows and collaboration in scene creation and asset aggregation so teams can iterate together.

m48-interapp-workflow

Is file system agnostic, providing an extensible asset resolver to support any data storage model and allow for disparate data sources.

m48-monitor-visualization

Supports custom renderers in a generalized pipeline thanks to its Hydra rendering architecture that provides flexibility in visualizing data.

Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD)

Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA have formed AOUSD, an open, non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the standardization, development, evolution, and growth of OpenUSD.

Collaborating on Open Standards and USD

As a core contributor to open source across many applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics, NVIDIA is investing in the future of USD along with our ecosystem of partners. This will help USD evolve to make the ecosystem more powerful and ensure the metaverse won’t be built by one organization or company.

Universal Scene Description describes geometries, materials, physics, and behavior representations of 3D worlds and is the best open and extensible standard language for the 3D internet.

— Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA

NVIDIA’s contributions to help evolve USD as the open foundation of fully interoperable 3D platforms will be a great benefit across industries.

— Steve May, CTO, Pixar Animation Studios

Beyond media and entertainment, USD will give 3D artists, designers, developers and others the ability to work collaboratively across diverse workflows and applications as they build virtual worlds.

— Rev Lebaredian, Vice President of Omniverse and Simulation Technology, NVIDIA

The Conference for the Era of AI and the Metaverse

Developer Conference March 20-23 | Keynote March 21

Don't miss these three upcoming Omniverse sessions at GTC.

How Universal Scene Description can become the "HTML" of the Metaverse

Join this session to hear from a panel of distinguished technical leaders as they talk about the power of Universal Scene Description (USD) as a standard for the 3D internet. These luminaries will share how their individual companies see the...

An Overview of Universal Scene Description (USD) for Building Virtual Worlds

Universal Scene Description is much more than just a file format. This open, powerful, easily extensible world composition framework has APIs for creating, editing, querying, rendering, simulating and collaboration within virtual worlds. NVIDIA...

How General Motors Explores Future Automated Workflows Using a Single ‘Live’ USD Dataset with Omniverse

Current GM workflows use digital data exported from many different digital content creation programs (Autodesk Alias, Siemens NX, JT, Blender, Maya, and Rhino/Grasshopper) into different file formats. The exported files are “dead” data with no...

Pushing the Limits of USD

NVIDIA continues to accelerate USD’s evolution for use cases beyond visual effects (VFX), testing the limits of the USD ecosystem through industrial, robotics, and AI applications.

Omniverse

Omniverse

NVIDIA Omniverse™ is a multi-GPU scalable computing platform for virtual worlds based on USD. The open, extensible development platform serves as a foundation for building metaverse applications, using your favorite content creation tools. 

Isaac Sim

Isaac Sim

Based on USD, NVIDIA Isaac Sim™ is a scalable robotics simulation application framework and synthetic data-generation tool that powers physically accurate virtual environments to develop, test, and manage AI-based robots.

DRIVE Sim

DRIVE Sim

NVIDIA DRIVE Sim™ is an open and scalable end-to-end simulation platform built on Omniverse and USD that's used to run physically accurate multi-sensor simulation for autonomous vehicle (AV) development.

Digital Twins

SimReady Assets

USD serves as the foundation for  simulation-ready assets; advanced 3D assets with physical properties that let them behave like they would in the real world.

NVIDIA’s USD Contributions

NVIDIA is expanding development of OpenUSD to help our industrial and scientific communities build large-scale, physically accurate digital twins. We’re also investing in OpenUSD to include many future capabilities, such as geospatial coordinates, connections to glTF file format, real-time proceduralism, the ability to run in web browsers, and real-time streaming of IoT data.

Material Definition Language (MDL)

Material Definition Language (MDL)

MDL lets you easily share physically based materials between supporting applications.

USD Physics

USD Physics

Watch a technical deep dive about the rigid body physics extension to USD with a real-time simulation demonstration in Omniverse USD Composer.

Python 3 Bindings

Python 3 Bindings

Omniverse Kit uses Python 3 async API to safely load and save assets between Omniverse servers and the local file system.

USDView in Omniverse Launcher

USDView in Omniverse Launcher

USDView is available in the Omniverse Launcher for visually inspecting USD scenes.

Material Definition Language (MDL)
USD Physics
Python 3 Bindings
USDView in Omniverse Launcher

Getting Started with USD

Get Started with OpenUSD

Introduction to OpenUSD

On-Demand

Watch this Introduction to USD to Learn the Basics

Learn the OpenUSD Basics

On-Demand

Instructor Led

Learn USD Fundamentals from the Deep Learning Institute (DLI)

Instructor-Led

OpenUSD Validation Service

Check your USD files with RunUSD, a free validation service so you can build your 3D tools and pipeline with confidence.

Access

Deployment Options

 NVIDIA RTX Systems

On Premises

NVIDIA RTX Systems

The unrivaled power and capability found in the latest generations of NVIDIA RTX-enabled GPUs deliver the performance needed for the real-time, multi-app, and AI features built into Omniverse.

 NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud

Cloud

Omniverse Cloud

NVIDIA Omniverse™ Cloud is a cloud services platform enabling development, deployment, and management of advanced 3D applications and pipelines.

Experience NVIDIA Omniverse Today

Download Omniverse and get started using Universal Scene Description today.

nvidia-omniverse-creators-3c33-D

Creators

Free to Download and Create

Omniverse acts as a central hub to seamlessly connect and enhance 3D creative applications, unifying assets, libraries, and tools for a truly uninterrupted workflow, letting artists achieve new heights of creative freedom.

nvidia-omniverse-code-developers-3c33-D

Developers

Free to Develop and Distribute

Omniverse is built with developers in mind and gives them the ability to customize their 3D workflows at every layer to easily build new Omniverse Connectors, extensions, applications, and microservices.

nvidia-omniverse-enterprise-3c33-D

Enterprise

Free Trial I Annual License

Omniverse Enterprise transforms complex design workflows for organizations of any scale. It enables real-time collaboration with multiple users and locations, using multiple applications using centralized project data.

Community

Become a Part of Our Community

Become a part of a global network of 3D creators and developers connecting and creating virtual worlds with NVIDIA Omniverse.

Latest News

Get Live Help

Connect with Omniverse experts live to get your questions answered.

Explore Resources

Learn at your own pace with free getting started material.

Experience NVIDIA Omniverse Today

Download Omniverse and get started using Universal Scene Description.