At WWDC Apple has announced a new open file format for Augmented Reality scenes. Here’s what you need to know.
What is USDZ and what is it used for?
At the last WWDC2018, Apple announced a new standard for AR (Augmented Reality) files, developed in collaboration with Pixar: the USDZ format.
According to Apple, this format is optimized to be shared through different applications (Messages, Safari, Mail, Archives, News,…) without losing its graphic and animation capabilities. With the USDZ file format, Quick Look for AR also allows users to place 3D objects in the real world to see how they look in space, and allows other people to see the same thing, in the same place, at the same time.
USD is the core of Pixar’s 3D graphics production, which it used for the first time to develop the film “A Bug’s Life”. The USD (Universal Scene Description) format has already had four evolutions, and Pixar continues to use it in all its 3D authoring and rendering applications.
A USD file can be used simultaneously by several artists in their own layers, which are combined after each user finishes their work, and allows you to keep track of who has made what changes. However, if you combine several USD files, you get the new USDZ (Universal Scene Description Zip) format.
According to Pixar, the file format is a “zero compression” zip file of existing USD files, with a primary USD file acting as a “scene” (default layer) for the remaining assets contained. The combined file can be used by a compatible software suite to create a 3D scene by composing many individual files together in successive, larger and larger aggregations.
A USDZ file is read-only. Editing the contents requires the user to unzip the file and extract the individual parts of the file.
ARKit 2 and USDZ will be available for iOS 12 developers starting Monday. Support for ARKit 2 and USDZ will be available to the general public in the fall as part of iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 Mojave.
One of the big problems with introducing new file formats is their compatibility. If developers of popular applications do not incorporate support for writing compatible files, the format risks being forgotten for lack of use, or worse, become an inconvenience every time someone sends a file in the format that no one else uses.
However, at WWDC2018 itself, Apple announced that its own applications (ARKit 2 for creating scenes and the applications mentioned above for playing them), as well as Pixar’s (which also sells its software for use by other animation companies) and Adobe’s applications would incorporate the ability to read and write in this format, so that the chances of it being implemented as the de facto standard for everything related to Augmented Reality (AR) grow exponentially.