The Complete USD to USDZ Conversion Guide
General Information
This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Formats Knowledge Database.It shows how to convert USD to USDZ, if you'd like to know more about the formats, please check out the following links:
Converting and Optimizing USD Files to USDZ
There are various ways to convert between USD and USDZ. With RapidPipeline, you can easily convert and and optimize USD files, at scale. It supports USDZ, as well as many other file formats (examples: FBX, glTF, OBJ, PLY, STL, VRM), at high quality.
Below you can see how to convert your files:
What are USD and USDZ files commonly used for?
The USD file is a format mostly used for 3D modeling and rendering applications, and exchange of 3D authoring data.
The USDZ file is a format mostly used for interactive 3D, on the Web and elsewhere (e.g., in XR).
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Comparison of Features Supported by USD and USDZ
| Feature | Supported by USD | Supported by USDZ |
|---|---|---|
| Morph Targets | Yes | Yes |
| Rigid Animations | Yes | Yes |
| Skinned Animations | Yes | Yes |
| Animations | Yes | Yes |
| Free-Form Surfaces | Yes | Yes |
| Geometry Compression | No | No |
| Quad Meshes | Yes | Yes |
| Basic 3D Geometry | Yes | Yes |
| PBR Materials | Yes | Yes |
| Transparent Materials | Yes | Yes |
| Vertex Colors | Yes | Yes |
| Materials | Yes | Yes |
| Scene Composition | Yes | Yes |
| Hierarchical Scene Graph | Yes | Yes |
| Scene Nodes | Yes | Yes |
| Standardized Format | Yes | Yes |
| Embedded Textures | No | No |
| Multiple UV Channels | Yes | Yes0 |
| Normal Mapping | Yes | Yes |
| Procedural Textures | Yes | Yes |
| Texture Compression | Partial1 | No |
| Texture Transforms | Yes | Yes |
| Texturing | Yes | Yes |
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Limitations of USD Files to USDZ Conversion Workflow
The following limitations should be taken into account when converting USD files to USDZ format:
| USD Feature (not supported by USDZ) | Limitation Details |
|---|---|
| Texture Compression | Texture Compression Support: USD: Partial support | USDZ: No support   USD Notes: USD itself imposes no image format constraints. USDZ packages support PNG, JPEG, EXR, and AVIF — JPEG and AVIF use compressed image formats. No GPU-level texture compression (e.g. BCn/DXT/KTX2) is supported. Apple's USDZ implementation historically limited textures to PNG and JPEG. Impact: Texture compression refers to a process of compressing 2D texture images for memory-efficient rendering (and sometimes for efficient transmission). The decompression of compressed texture data is therefore performed on-the-fly during rendering, so that it never has to be stored in unpacked form, but can be kept as-is in GPU memory. Formats supporting texture compression methods, such as the ones offered by glTF through KTX2 containers, therefore allow 3D models to use a smaller memory footprint on the client device during rendering. This can speed up rendering time, and also make it possible to store and use larger amounts of texture data than it would otherwise be possible. |
What's the best way to get USD files into my 3D applications, and are there alternatives to using USDZ?
Doing 3D conversion right, especially at scale, can be tricky, as 3D data is in general a rather complex (yet very powerful!) medium. This also applies to USD and USDZ files - the conversion guide above provides a rough first idea about that. Once you know what you would like to do, tools like RapidPipeline can help you perform the necessary steps, and to even automate the process for thousands or even millions of files.
Especially when introducing pipelines and workflows at scale in an enterprise context, it is usually good to rely on dedicated tools and expertise, making sure you do not introduce any steps into your 3D workflow that are detrimental to the final output's quality, or that take your team too much time (and money).
If you're interested to hire dedicated expertise from the best in the field to help your company reach your goals fast and reliably, please do not hestitate to contact DGG. Being the creators of RapidPipeline, and ambassadors for open 3D standards for more than a decade, we have been building some of the world's most advanced 3D pipelines, having processed many millions of 3D assets.
Therefore, our expertise will help you to reach your goals faster, at scale, and with the least possible friction, since we are focused on maximum interoperability.
To get started with 3D data conversion and optimization today, sign up for a free account!
If you have any questions, feel free to chat with our human team.
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