Learn OpenUSD (Learning Path)

Learn OpenUSD (Learning Path)

Discover NVIDIA’s DLI (Deep Learning Institute) Courses

Discover how to supercharge your 3D workflows with Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD), an open and extensible ecosystem for describing, composing, simulating, and collaborating within 3D worlds, through this free NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI) learning path. Gain foundational knowledge, explore essential concepts, and harness the full potential of OpenUSD today.

OpenUSD Learning Path

Harness the full potential of OpenUSD today through this comprehensive learning path, including foundational knowledge, essential concepts, and more.

www.nvidia.com

OpenUSD Learning Path

🧱 Introduction to USD (Universal Scene Description)

📌 What is USD?

USD is an open-source software developed by Pixar that provides a robust framework for the scalable interchange and non-destructive editing of 3D scene data across applications in a graphics pipeline. It enables complex scene assembly from elemental assets while maintaining a single, consistent API and scenegraph.

  • Find out more on the official documentation:
Introduction to USD — Universal Scene Description 25.02 documentation

USD provides for interchange of elemental assets (e.g. models) or animations. But unlike other interchange packages, USD also enables assembly and organization of any number of assets into virtual sets, scenes, shots, and worlds, transmitting them from application to application, and non-destructively editing them (as overrides), with a single, consistent API, in a single scenegraph. USD provides a rich toolset for reading, writing, editing, and rapidly previewing 3D geometry, shading, lighting, physics, and a growing number of other graphics-related domains. In addition, because USD’s core scenegraph and composition engine are agnostic of any particular domain, USD can be extended in a maintainable way to encode and compose data in other domains.

openusd.org

💡 Why Use USD?

  • Core of Pixar’s 3D pipeline, used in all authoring and rendering applications
  • Facilitates collaborative editing through subLayer composition
  • Minimizes latency and maximizes iteration speed
  • Offers high performance, multi-application scene interchange
  • Includes powerful tools for previewing, editing, and streaming 3D data

✅ What Can USD Do?

USD organizes data as hierarchical Prims containing Attributes and Relationships within Layers.

It can represent:

  • Geometry (meshes, transforms, curves, nurbs, etc.)
  • Shading (materials, shader networks, geometry bindings)
  • Model and Asset definitions for large-scale scene structuring

It can compose and override:

  • Layer stacking (like Photoshop)
  • References and Payloads for asset assembly
  • VariantSets for asset variation
  • Inherits and Specializes for reuse and refinement
  • Support for instancing and value clips for performance and scalability

🖼️ USD/Hydra Imaging System

  • Hydra: Imaging framework with a plugin system for renderers
  • Storm: Default rasterizing renderer using OpenSubdiv
  • Supports Vulkan, Metal, and more
  • Integrates with Embree path-tracer, RenderMan, and third-party plugins
  • Used in tools like usdview and external applications for fast previews and streaming