The OpenUSD ecosystem continues its rapid advancement, with v25.11 introducing significant updates that enhance UI, rendering, physics, and performance. This release marks a major step forward in standardizing user interactions, improving rendering fidelity, and providing a more robust and efficient framework for interoperable 3D content.
OpenUSD v25.11 is now available on GitHub, and its core non-imaging libraries can be installed via PyPI with the command line.
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pip install usd-core |
Here are the major highlights for this release.
UsdImaging 2.0 Now Default
Building on the work in v25.08, UsdImagingSceneIndex is now enabled. This makes the Hydra 2.0 scene index code path the default for UsdImaging.
Validation Framework and usdview UI
usdchecker is now using the new validation framework by default under the hood and the validation framework is also now accessible directly within usdview.
Open USD Validation window from the Window menu in usdview
usdview provides a new interface widget for running validation suites on an open stage to check for content correctness and compliance. This framework also introduces UsdValidationFixer, which can represent a fix that can be applied to a specific validation error.
USD Validation window
Nested Bodies for UsdPhysics
UsdPhysics now supports nested rigid bodies. This implementation significantly improves alignment with robotics and simulation standards, allowing for more complex and accurate physical assemblies, as well as visualization of the kinematic tree for articulations. For more information, please see the proposal, docs, and the example.
UI Hints in UsdUI
This release introduces UI Hints to UsdUI, a major step towards standardizing how applications interpret and display UI elements from USD. This new framework adds a dictionary-valued uiHints metadata field for prims and properties. This allows for conditional visibility (“shownIf”), user-facing labels for attribute values (“valueLabels”), and default expansion states for display groups.
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def "PrimWithPropertyHints" ( uiHints = { string displayName = "Example prim" bool hidden = 0 } ) { int exampleAttribute = 1 ( uiHints = { string displayName = "An example attribute" bool hidden = 0 string displayGroup = "Display Group 1" string shownIf = "showProperties == 1" } ) rel exampleRelationship ( uiHints = { string displayName = "An example relationship" bool hidden = 0 string displayGroup = "" string shownIf = "showProperties == 1" } ) bool showProperties = true } |
This deprecates the older displayName, displayGroup, and hidden metadata APIs, which are now being relocated into the new uiHints dictionary. The legacy metadata will still be read for backwards compatibility with existing content, but client code should begin using UsdUIObjectHints and UsdUIPropertyHints to read and write these values.
For more information, please see the proposal and the documentation.
Limits Metadata on UsdAttribute
This release also introduces limits, a new top-level metadata field on UsdAttribute for holding minimum and maximum values. The API supports reading and writing to sub-dictionaries, specifically to define “soft” vs “hard” limits though other sub-dictionaries can also be created. While USD does not enforce limits values in the authoring APIs, validation errors will be raised when an authored value is out of the “hard” range.
For more information, please see the Limits Dictionary section of the UsdAttribute API documentation.
UsdLux Embree Reference Implementation
A reference implementation for most UsdLux features is now available in the HdEmbree render delegate. This provides a clear, compliant implementation of direct lighting from UsdLux light types, serving as a valuable standard for conformance testing and a reference for other render delegates to target.
Embree 4.x Upgrade
The build platform has been upgraded to use Embree 4.x, and support for Embree 3.x has been removed.
Spline Enhancements in usdview
Following the introduction of spline animation, the usdview spline viewer has been enhanced. The viewer now displays the knots and tangents of a spline, giving animators and artists more precise visual feedback.
The updated spline viewer in usdview now displays knots and tangents.
SdfPath Performance Improvements
Performance is always a focus, and this release sees significant optimization in SdfPath. By removing spurious memory allocations, the implementer reported a 2.3x savings on Windows, which can benefit applications that frequently construct or manipulate SdfPaths.
libDispatch Tasking Example
To showcase flexible, non-TBB based task scheduling, an alternative work implementation example using Apple’s libDispatch has been added. This provides another reference for developers looking to integrate OpenUSD into custom task management systems.
.sdf File Format Removal
The legacy .sdf file format is now officially deprecated and will be removed in a future release. This format was identical to .usda and was only used for testing. The SDF_FILE_FORMAT_LEGACY_IMPORT environment variable is now set to “warn” by default, encouraging all users to rely on .usda for text-based USD files.
Check out the full release notes on GitHub.
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