The Ultimate Guide to Turn USDZ Files into SimReady USD Content

This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Formats Knowledge Database.

USDZ is the zipped variant of the Universal Scene Description (USD) format. Since USDZ is zipped without additional compression, it should not seen as a compressed format. Instead, the purpose of a USDZ file is to bundle up various assets that make up a 3D model in USD format (for example, scene data and texture images) into a single file. USDZ got especially popular as primary supported format on all Apple devices, such as iPhones, using the ARKit technology. However, the subset of USD features that is supported by Apple's ARKit (and therefore the most common use of this format) is rather limited to essential functions for a delivery format, in contrast to the feature set of the actual USD format (which is a more powerful runtime- and exchange format). Therefore, commonly when talking about USDZ, usually the limited variant available with Apple's ARKit is meant (even though technically USDZ is just a zipped encoding of a USD scene with all its resources). It is a file format mostly used for interactive 3D, on the Web and elsewhere (e.g., in XR).

USD (Universal Scene Description) is the primary format to generate SimReady data, enabling 3D assets to be used in simulation environments such as NVIDIA Omniverse, PhysX, and more. For this to work properly, USD assets must adhere to the USD standard, and ideally bring metadata that helps to inform downstream simulation use cases about various simulation-relevant properties of the 3D asset.

There are various ways to generate USD files, but especially when starting from non-simulation formats like USDZ, it is not easy to perform a good conversion. Additional required steps might include material assignment (in case realistic materials are desired) and related steps like UV generation, but also metadata transfer from the original file to the final SimReady USD asset.

With RapidPipeline, the process of generating NVIDIA SimReady USD content from USDZ files is easy:

1. Download RapidPipeline Twin Studio, or one of the RapidPipeline 3D tool plugins (free trial available). Alternatively, you can also use RapidPipeline directly in the browser.
2. Perform the conversion from USDZ to USD. Store or download the resulting USD file, it's ready to use!
3. If you'd like to scale up the process, simply get in touch to acquire a license for the RapidPipeline 3D Processor, running as powerful batch processing tool that turns your entire library of USDZ files (or other files) into SimReady USD content.

Here is the link for more details.

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