Alliance for OpenUSD

The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) is a Linux Foundation project dedicated to promoting interoperability of 3D content through Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD). Founded by Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, AOUSD standardizes 3D content ecosystems for film, gaming, architecture, industrial design, and the metaverse. OpenUSD provides a high-performance extensible software platform for collaboratively constructing animated 3D scenes with schemas for geometry, shading, lighting, physics, and volume rendering.

Alliance for OpenUSD is listed with 2 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include 3D, Interoperability, Linux Foundation, Metaverse, and OpenUSD.

The Alliance for OpenUSD catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Alliance for OpenUSD’s developer surface includes developer portal, documentation, getting-started guide, engineering blog, and 14 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

28.3/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 1/100 human only Heartbeat 100/100 alive library Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemium

2 APIs 5 Features 5 Use Cases

3D Interoperability Linux Foundation Metaverse OpenUSD Specification StandardsUSDVisual Effects

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 28.3/100 · thin

Contract Quality 3.1 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 8.1 / 17

Access Clarity 1.3 / 17

Operational Transparency 4.1 / 11

Contract Governance 2.4 / 10

Discoverability 5.6 / 9

Regulatory Posture 1.6 / 15

Agent readiness — 1/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics could not be measured. We hold no machine-readable contract for this provider to read, so there is nothing to measure a write surface against. Excluded rather than scored zero: never-measured and measured-empty are different facts. Publishing an OpenAPI is what makes this facet — and several others — scorable at all.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Machine-Readable Contract +18 pts — api_specs includes an OpenAPI document
MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author
Machine-Readable Auth +10 pts — a served openid-configuration/oauth-authorization-server carrying `issuer` (served), else the securitySchemes class in the provider OpenAPIs — bound (mutualTLS, DPoP, Signature) > negotiable (oauth2 authorizationCode/clientCredentials, openIdConnect) > bearer (http bearer, apiKey)
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes

12 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Contract Quality scores 14.7 — up to +21.3 composite points
Access Clarity scores 7.9 — up to +18.4 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 47.6 — up to +10.5 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/aousd/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/aousd to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
XR & Graphics (XR, 3D, GPU graphics)	undeclared	-	-	-
Film & Media Identifiers (EIDR, ISAN, MovieLabs, DPP)	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 2

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenUSD

tagged — the provider's own APIs.json carries the standard as a tag; implementation not verified

Specification

tagged — the provider's own APIs.json carries the standard as a tag; implementation not verified

APIs 2

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

OpenUSD C++ API

The OpenUSD C++ API is the primary interface for working with Universal Scene Description data. Provides access to USD core (scene composition and asset management), UsdImaging ...

OpenUSD Python Bindings

OpenUSD provides comprehensive Python bindings for all major C++ modules, enabling scripting and pipeline integration in Python-based DCC workflows. Python bindings cover the fu...

Alliance for OpenUSD API pricing

Not yet checked against Alliance for OpenUSD's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Free freemium	Free
Professional paid	Free
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Alliance for OpenUSD's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Aousd Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Aousd Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Aousd Finops

FINOPS

Features 5

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Scene Composition

USD's composition arcs (references, payloads, variants, instancing, and specializes) enable non-destructive scene assembly from multiple asset layers with override workflows.

Schema-Driven Extensibility

OpenUSD's schema system allows studios and tool vendors to extend the core specification with domain-specific schemas for physics, simulation, characters, and environments.

Hydra Rendering Architecture

The Hydra rendering delegate architecture enables pluggable render backends including Storm (OpenGL), Arnold, RenderMan, and others.

Multiple File Formats

OpenUSD supports human-readable ASCII (.usda), binary (.usdb), and packaged archive (.usdz) file formats for different use cases.

Asset Resolution

The ArResolver system enables customizable asset path resolution for integrating USD with studio asset management systems.

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Aousd Context

5 classes · 18 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Alliance for OpenUSD — jsonschema rules

5 rules · 3 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

USDLayer

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

USDPrim

10 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 2

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Aousd Usd Layer Structure

12 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Aousd Usd Prim Structure

10 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Aousd Usd Layer Example

12 fields

EXAMPLE

Aousd Usd Prim Example

10 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Aousd Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS

SECURITY

Use Cases 5

What developers build with this provider.

Film and Visual Effects Production

Exchange complex animated scenes between DCC tools (Maya, Houdini, Blender, Katana) and render farms using OpenUSD as the common format.

Game Development

Use OpenUSD as an interchange format between game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity and DCC content creation tools.

Architecture and Design Visualization

Share 3D building models, materials, and lighting between architectural design tools and real-time visualization platforms.

Metaverse and XR

Enable interoperability of 3D assets and scenes across XR platforms, spatial computing devices, and virtual world applications.

Industrial Digital Twins

Represent complex mechanical assemblies and simulation environments for industrial digital twin applications using USD schemas.

Integrations 5

Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.

Autodesk Maya / 3ds Max

Import and export USD files via Autodesk's official USD plugins for Maya and 3ds Max, enabling OpenUSD-based pipelines.

SideFX Houdini

Native USD integration in Houdini via LOPs (Layout Object Primitives) for creating and editing USD scenes and assets.

Apple Reality Composer Pro

Apple's spatial computing tools use .usdz as the primary format for augmented reality and visionOS content.

NVIDIA Omniverse

NVIDIA Omniverse is built on OpenUSD, using it as the foundation for collaborative 3D design and industrial digital twin workflows.

Pixar RenderMan

RenderMan natively reads USD scenes, making it the primary production renderer for USD-based feature film pipelines.

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Portal

Portal

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

Documentation 3

Reference material describing how the API behaves

ContributionGuide

ContributionGuide

Documentation

Documentation

USD Layer Schema

JSONSchema

Design & Contract 1

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Build 3

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

CodeOfConduct

CodeOfConduct

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

GitHubRepository

GitHubRepository

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

SecurityPolicy

SecurityPolicy

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 3

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

IssueTracker

IssueTracker

Releases

Releases

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Blog

Blog

Source (apis.yml)

name: Alliance for OpenUSD
description: The Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD) is a Linux Foundation project dedicated to promoting interoperability of 3D
  content through Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD). Founded by Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA, AOUSD standardizes
  3D content ecosystems for film, gaming, architecture, industrial design, and the metaverse. OpenUSD provides a high-performance
  extensible software platform for collaboratively constructing animated 3D scenes with schemas for geometry, shading, lighting,
  physics, and volume rendering.
deliveryModel:
  model: library
  license_evidence:
    not_product:
    - pixaranimationstudios/openusd
  open_source: unknown
  commercial: false
  callable_host: false
  label: Library · distributed through package registries, no callable service
  confidence: low
  source:
  - repository-not-product
  generated: '2026-09-25'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/aousd.png
tags:
- 3D
- Interoperability
- Linux Foundation
- Metaverse
- OpenUSD
- Specification
- Standards
- USD
- Visual Effects
created: '2026-03-16'
modified: '2026-04-19'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/aousd/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- name: OpenUSD C++ API
  description: The OpenUSD C++ API is the primary interface for working with Universal Scene Description data. Provides access
    to USD core (scene composition and asset management), UsdImaging and Hydra (rendering infrastructure), schema APIs for
    geometry (UsdGeom), shading (UsdShade), lighting (UsdLux), physics (UsdPhysics), volume (UsdVol), and the Shader Discovery
    and Registry (SDR). Available as an open-source library under the Apache 2.0 license.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://openusd.org/release/api/index.html
  baseURL: https://openusd.org
  tags:
  - 3D
  - C++
  - File Format
  - Library
  - OpenUSD
  - Rendering
  - Scene Description
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://openusd.org/release/api/index.html
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://openusd.org/release/api/index.html
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://openusd.org/release/tut_usd_tutorials.html
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD
  - type: Glossary
    url: https://openusd.org/release/glossary.html
  contact:
  - FN: AOUSD Community
    url: https://aousd.org/
- name: OpenUSD Python Bindings
  description: OpenUSD provides comprehensive Python bindings for all major C++ modules, enabling scripting and pipeline integration
    in Python-based DCC workflows. Python bindings cover the full USD API including pxr.Usd, pxr.UsdGeom, pxr.UsdShade, pxr.UsdLux,
    pxr.UsdPhysics, pxr.Sdf, and Hydra. Used extensively in production pipelines at Pixar, ILM, and other studios.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
  humanURL: https://openusd.org/release/api/index.html
  baseURL: https://pypi.org/project/usd-core/
  tags:
  - 3D
  - OpenUSD
  - Python
  - Scene Description
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://openusd.org/release/api/index.html
  - type: SDKs
    url: https://pypi.org/project/usd-core/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD
  contact:
  - FN: Pixar Animation Studios
    url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: info@apievangelist.com
  X: apievangelist
  url: https://apievangelist.com
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/aousd-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/aousd-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/aousd-finops.yml
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD/issues
- type: Releases
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD/releases
- type: SecurityPolicy
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD/blob/dev/SECURITY.md
- type: CodeOfConduct
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD/blob/dev/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- type: ContributionGuide
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD/blob/dev/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/aousd-domain-security.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allianceopenusd
- type: Portal
  url: https://aousd.org
- type: Documentation
  url: https://openusd.org/release/index.html
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://openusd.org/release/tut_usd_tutorials.html
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenUSD
- type: JSONSchema
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/aousd/refs/heads/main/json-schema/aousd-usd-layer-schema.json
  title: USD Layer Schema
- type: Vocabulary
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/aousd/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/aousd-vocabulary.yaml
- type: Features
  data:
  - name: Scene Composition
    description: USD's composition arcs (references, payloads, variants, instancing, and specializes) enable non-destructive
      scene assembly from multiple asset layers with override workflows.
  - name: Schema-Driven Extensibility
    description: OpenUSD's schema system allows studios and tool vendors to extend the core specification with domain-specific
      schemas for physics, simulation, characters, and environments.
  - name: Hydra Rendering Architecture
    description: The Hydra rendering delegate architecture enables pluggable render backends including Storm (OpenGL), Arnold,
      RenderMan, and others.
  - name: Multiple File Formats
    description: OpenUSD supports human-readable ASCII (.usda), binary (.usdb), and packaged archive (.usdz) file formats
      for different use cases.
  - name: Asset Resolution
    description: The ArResolver system enables customizable asset path resolution for integrating USD with studio asset management
      systems.
- type: UseCases
  data:
  - name: Film and Visual Effects Production
    description: Exchange complex animated scenes between DCC tools (Maya, Houdini, Blender, Katana) and render farms using
      OpenUSD as the common format.
  - name: Game Development
    description: Use OpenUSD as an interchange format between game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity and DCC content creation
      tools.
  - name: Architecture and Design Visualization
    description: Share 3D building models, materials, and lighting between architectural design tools and real-time visualization
      platforms.
  - name: Metaverse and XR
    description: Enable interoperability of 3D assets and scenes across XR platforms, spatial computing devices, and virtual
      world applications.
  - name: Industrial Digital Twins
    description: Represent complex mechanical assemblies and simulation environments for industrial digital twin applications
      using USD schemas.
- type: Integrations
  data:
  - name: Autodesk Maya / 3ds Max
    description: Import and export USD files via Autodesk's official USD plugins for Maya and 3ds Max, enabling OpenUSD-based
      pipelines.
  - name: SideFX Houdini
    description: Native USD integration in Houdini via LOPs (Layout Object Primitives) for creating and editing USD scenes
      and assets.
  - name: Apple Reality Composer Pro
    description: Apple's spatial computing tools use .usdz as the primary format for augmented reality and visionOS content.
  - name: NVIDIA Omniverse
    description: NVIDIA Omniverse is built on OpenUSD, using it as the foundation for collaborative 3D design and industrial
      digital twin workflows.
  - name: Pixar RenderMan
    description: RenderMan natively reads USD scenes, making it the primary production renderer for USD-based feature film
      pipelines.
- url: https://aousd.org/feed/
  type: Blog

Alliance for OpenUSD API — frequently asked questions

Does Alliance for OpenUSD have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 2 APIs from Alliance for OpenUSD, including OpenUSD C++ API and OpenUSD Python Bindings.

How much does the Alliance for OpenUSD API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Alliance for OpenUSD, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Alliance for OpenUSD API ready for AI agents?

Alliance for OpenUSD has a Kin Score of 28.3 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 0.6 (human-only), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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