Omniverse gets better rendering, Teams integration and more

Nvidia has expanded the reach of its 3D design, collaboration and simulation platform, Nvidia Omniverse, by introducing new connectors that link standard applications through the Universal Scene Description (USD) framework.

These include Blender, Cesium, Unity and Vectorworks. Omniverse Connectors for Azure Digital Twin, Blackshark.ai, and NavVis are coming soon, adding to the hundreds that are already available, such as Autodesk Revit, Trimble SketchUp and Graphisoft Archicad.

Nvidia is also adding new features to the platform through the forthcoming Omniverse Kit 105 release. This includes the ‘first real time ray traced subsurface scattering shader’, performance improvements with new runtime data transfer and scene optimisers for large ‘worlds’ and more ‘sim ready’ assets, now running into the hundreds.

Nvidia has also been working closely with Microsoft to bring Omniverse Cloud to Microsoft Azure. The next stage is to bring this to Microsoft 365 to make Omniverse viewers available inside application such as Teams. From a Teams call, for example, participants will be able to teleport into a 3D environment to work and better understand what’s taking place. “Each of them will have their own experience in that 3D environment, collaboratively,” says Richard Kerris, VP Omniverse platform development, Nvidia.

Nvidia is also working to harness the power of ChatGPT for Omniverse. Kerris explains that end users will be able to use ChatGPT and instruct it to write code which they can then drop into Omniverse. “You’ll have an idea for something, and you’ll just be able to tell it to create something and a platform like Omniverse will allow you to realise it and see your vision come to life,” he says.

Developers can also use AI-generated inputs to provide data to Omniverse extensions like Camera Studio, which generates and customises cameras in Omniverse using data created in ChatGPT. Nvidia has also announced Nvidia Picasso, a cloud service for AI powered image, video and 3D applications, designed for software developers, not for end users. “Imagine just typing in what you need, and it creates a USD-based model that you can put into Omniverse and continue on,” explained Kerris.

■ www.nvidia.com/omniverse