USD Toolset
USD Toolset
usdedit
usdedit is a simple script that converts any single usd-readable file into its (temp) .usda ascii equivalent and brings the result up in your editor of choice, which is taken from the $EDITOR environment variable. Upon quitting the editor, any changes to the temp file will be converted back to the original file's format (assuming the FileFormatPlugin for the format allows writing), and the original file's contents will be replaced with the edited contents.
> usdedit -h usage: usdedit [-h] [-n] [-f] usdFileName Convert a usd-readable file to the usd ascii format in a temporary location and invoke an editor on it. After saving and quitting the editor, the edited file will be converted back to the original format and OVERWRITE the original file, unless you supply the "-n" (--noeffect) flag, in which case no changes will be saved back to the original file. The editor to use will be queried from the EDITOR environment variable. positional arguments: usdFileName The usd file to edit. optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -n, --noeffect Do not edit the file. -f, --forcewrite Override file permissions to allow writing.
Notes:
usdedit foo.abcworks as an alembic editor (in USD schema) for all elements of the alembic file that our translator currently handles. As we do not yet cover all aspects of the alembic schema, however, please be careful and do not usdedit an alembic file being used as a source file, since the roundtripping is lossy!- Running usdedit on a very large file with lots of dense, numeric data may take a long time, create a really large ascii file in your temp area (wherever python's tempfile package decides to put it), and may push the boundaries of your editor's scalability.
usdcat
> usdcat -h
usage: usdcat [-h] [-o file] [--usdFormat usda|usdb|usdc] [-f]
[--mask PRIMPATH[,PRIMPATH...]]
inputFiles [inputFiles ...]
Write usd file(s) either as text to stdout or to a specified output file.
positional arguments:
inputFiles
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-o file, --out file Write a single input file to this output file instead
of stdout.
--usdFormat usda|usdb|usdc
Use this underlying file format for output files with
the extension 'usd'. For example, passing '-o
output.usd --usdFormat usda' will create output.usd as
a text file. The USD_DEFAULT_FILE_FORMAT environment
variable is another way to achieve this.
-f, --flatten Compose stages with the input files as root layers and
write their flattened content.
--mask PRIMPATH[,PRIMPATH...]
Limit stage population to these prims, their
descendants and ancestors. To specify multiple paths,
either use commas with no spaces or quote the argument
and separate paths by commas and/or spaces. Requires
--flatten.
Notes:
- The mulit-file input to usdcat does not perform any kind of merge of the content in the separate files (and there is no such utility to do so, yet... parameterizing that problem is an interesting challenge!); it simply dumps the contents of each file, sequentially.
- The --flatten option uses UsdStage::Export(), which, as one might expect, "bakes in" the effects of all composition operators, simultaneously removing the operators themselves, in the result; this applies both to namespace operators like references, sublayers, and variants, and also to value-resolution operators like layer and reference time offsets. Flattening a stage does preserve USD native instancing by flattening each master into the generated layer and adding references on each instance to its corresponding master. Thus, the exported data may appear structurally different than in the participating source files, but should evaluate/compute identically to that of the source files.
usddiff
usddiff runs a diff program on the result of usdcat'ing two named usd-readable files. It is currently quite primitive, with limitations noted below, but even so can be quite useful.
> usddiff -h
usage: usddiff [-h] [-n] [-f] files [files ...]
Compares two usd-readable files using a selected diff program. This is chosen
by looking at the $USD_DIFF environment variable. If this is unset, it will
consult the $DIFF environment variable. Lastly, if neither of these is set, it
will try to use the canonical unix program, diff. This will relay the exit
code of the selected diff program.
positional arguments:
files The files to compare. These must be of the form DIR DIR,
FILE... DIR, DIR FILE... or FILE FILE.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-n, --noeffect Do not edit either file.
-f, --flatten Fully compose both layers as Usd Stages and flatten into
single layers.
Notes:
- It does not do any fuzzy numerical comparison. The slightest precision difference will cause a diff.
usdview
usdview is the most fully-featured USD tool, combining interactive gl preview, scenegraph navigation and introspection, a (growing) set of diagnostic and debugging facilities, and an interactive python interpreter.
> usdview -h
usage: ./bin/usdview [-h] [--renderer {opt,simple}] [--select PRIMPATH]
[--camera CAMERA] [--mask PRIMPATH[,PRIMPATH...]]
[--clearsettings] [--norender] [--unloaded] [--timing]
[--memstats {none,stage,stageAndImaging}]
[--numThreads NUMTHREADS] [--ff FIRSTFRAME]
[--lf LASTFRAME] [--complexity COMPLEXITY]
[--quitAfterStartup]
usdFile
View a usd file
positional arguments:
usdFile The file to view
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--renderer {opt,simple}
Which renderer to use
--select PRIMPATH A prim path to initially select and frame
--camera CAMERA Which camera to set the view to on open - may be given
as either just the camera's prim name (ie, just the
last element in the prim path), or as a full prim
path. Note that if only the prim name is used, and
more than one camera exists with the name, which is
used will be effectively random
--mask PRIMPATH[,PRIMPATH...]
Limit stage population to these prims, their
descendants and ancestors. To specify multiple paths,
either use commas with no spaces or quote the argument
and separate paths by commas and/or spaces.
--clearsettings Restores usdview settings to default
--norender Display only hierarchy browser
--unloaded Do not load payloads
--timing echo timing stats to console. NOTE: timings will be
unreliable when the --mallocTagStats option is also in
use
--memstats {none,stage,stageAndImaging}
Use the Pxr MallocTags memory accounting system to
profile USD, saving results to a tmp file, with a
summary to the console. Will have no effect if
MallocTags are not supported in the USD installation.
--numThreads NUMTHREADS
Number of threads used for processing(0 is max,
negative numbers imply max - N)
--ff FIRSTFRAME
--lf LASTFRAME
--complexity COMPLEXITY
A float complexity value in the closed range [1,2]
--quitAfterStartup quit immediately after start up
Further Notes on Command Line Options
-
--renderer : The default, "opt" renderer is the HD (hydra) high-performance renderer developed for the USD project. The "simple" gl renderer is single-threaded, uses simple VBO's to draw unrefined (only) geometry, and is largely used for debugging the "opt" renderer, or for when the underlying graphics hardware does not support the features required by the "opt" renderer. "Simple" also:
- currently does not support intrinsics like Spheres, Capsules, Cylinders, and Cubes
- uses only the main thread
- does not support renderer plugins
- --select primPath : loads and images the entire stage, but selects primPath in the prim browser, and positions the free camera as if one had hit the f ("frame selection") hotkey.
- --mask primPath [primPath ...] : opens the stage in masked mode, restricted to these paths for viewing only a subset of the prims on a stage.
- --norender : if one does not absolutely need the gl visualization of the stage, just access to navigating and introspecting the data, this option can substantially reduce the startup time and file I/O. Expect some errors in the terminal if you should happen to select some of the menu/shortcut options, as we have yet to do a cleanup pass for this mode. Errors should be harmless, however.
- --unloaded : Populates the stage without including any payloads. For a scene constructed of references to models built with payloads, this can create a summary "model hierarchy" view of the scene in a small fraction of the time it would take to compose and present all the prims in the scene. You can then load or unload subtrees of the prim hierarchy using either the "Edit > Load" menu, or the RMB context menu in the browser.
- --numThreads : this will determine how many threads the hydra renderer, boundingBox computer, and other multi-threaded computations will be able to use.
- --complexity : hydra uses OpenSubdiv to refine Mesh gprims whose subdivisionScheme is anything other than polygonal. A complexity of 1.0 indicates no subdivision, for maximum performance and lowest fidelity.
usdzip
Utility for creating usdz packages from USD compositions and the assets (images and others in future) they reference.
> usdzip -h
usage: usdzip [-h] [-r] [-a ASSET] [--arkitAsset ARKITASSET] [-c]
[-l [LISTTARGET]] [-d [DUMPTARGET]] [-v]
[usdzFile] [inputFiles [inputFiles ...]]
Utility for creating a .usdz file containging USD assets and for inspecting
existing .usdz files.
positional arguments:
usdzFile Name of the .usdz file to create or to inspect the
contents of.
inputFiles Files to include in the .usdz file.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-r, --recurse If specified, files in sub-directories are recursively
added to the package.
-a ASSET, --asset ASSET
Resolvable asset path pointing to the root layer of
the asset to be isolated and copied into the package.
--arkitAsset ARKITASSET
Similar to the --asset option, the --arkitAsset option
packages all of the dependencies of the named scene
file. Assets targeted at the initial usdz
implementation in ARKit operate under greater
constraints than usdz files for more general 'in
house' uses, and this option attempts to ensure that
these constraints are honored; this may involve more
transformations to the data, which may cause loss of
features such as VariantSets.
-c, --checkCompliance
Perform compliance checking of the input files. If the
input asset or "root" layer fails any of the
compliance checks, the package is not created and the
program fails.
-l [LISTTARGET], --list [LISTTARGET]
List contents of the specified usdz file. If a file-
path argument is provided, the list is output to a
file at the given path. If no argument is provided or
if '-' is specified as the argument, the list is
output to stdout.
-d [DUMPTARGET], --dump [DUMPTARGET]
Dump contents of the specified usdz file. If a file-
path argument is provided, the contents are output to
a file at the given path. If no argument is provided
or if '-' is specified as the argument, the contents
are output to stdout.
-v, --verbose Enable verbose mode, which causes messages regarding
files being added to the package to be output to
stdout.
usdchecker
usdchecker attempts to validate a USD or usdz file using a series of rules and metrics that will evolve over time.
> usdchecker -h
usage: usdchecker [-h] [-s] [-p] [-o [OUTFILE]] [--arkit] [-d] [-v] inputFile
Utility for checking the compliance of a given USD stage or a USDZ package.
positional arguments:
inputFile Name of the input file to inspect.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-s, --skipVariants If specified, only the prims that are present in the
default (i.e. selected) variants are checked. When
this option is not specified, prims in all possible
combinations of variant selections are checked.
-p, --rootPackageOnly
Check only the specifiedpackage. Nested packages,
dependencies and their contents are not validated.
-o [OUTFILE], --out [OUTFILE]
The file to which all the failed checks are output. If
unspecified, the failed checks are output to stdout.
--arkit Check if the given USD stage is compatible with
ARKit's initial implementation of usdz. These assets
operate under greater constraints that usdz files for
more general in-house uses, and this option attempts
to ensure that these constraints are met.
-d, --dumpRules Dump the enumerated set of rules being checked.
-v, --verbose Enable verbose output mode.
usdstitch
usdstitch aggregates any number of usd files into a single file. This process is different from flattening a stage. The key differences are:
- The result of usdstitch will contain the ordered union of composition arcs present on prims in the input sequence of files, whereas flattening removes (by baking in ("flattening") the composed opinions) composition arcs.
- usdstitch merges the TimeSamples from the input sequence of files, whereas flattening preserves the TimeSamples of only the strongest layer that contains TimeSamples, which is consistent with how value resolution interprets layered TimeSamples on a stage.
The goal and purpose of usdstitch is to create a merge of all of its input files, as if each file represents a timeslice of a complete scene, and we wish to merge all the scenes together. This is neither equivalent to stage flattening, as just described, nor will it produce an equivalent result to flattening a LayerStack, which is the process of combining all the (nested) SubLayers of a root layer into a single layer, preserving all composition arcs (other than subLayers) and guaranteeing the same evaluation behavior, thus (purely) optimizing N layers into one. USD does not yet have a tool for this operation.
> usdstitch -h
usage: [-h] [-o OUT]
usdFiles [usdFiles ...]
Stitch multiple usd file(s) together into one. Opinion strength is determined
by the order in which the file is given, with the first file getting the
highest strength. The exception to this general behavior is in time samples,
which are merged together as a union across the input layers. It is consistent
in that, if two time sample keys conflict, the strong layer takes precedence.
positional arguments:
usdFiles
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-o OUT, --out OUT specify a file to write out to
usdstitchclips
usdstitchclips is a tool which produces an aggregate representation of a common prim (and all its descendant prims) shared across a set of USD files using the Value Clips feature. This utility will provide a Value Clip representation of the input files, which are presumed to form a sequential animation, determined by the startTimeCode and endTimeCode of each layer in the sequence. It produces two files, as described in the usage output below:
-
result.topology.usd- this file will contain the unioned prim and property topology and metadata of all the input files - that is, all prims and properties that appear in any of the input USD files. -
result.usd- this file will minimally contain the prim hierarchy described by the --clipPath command argument, to host the Value Clip metadata at clipPath. This means that in the resulting composition, all prims at or below clipPath in namespace will receive values from the input clip layers.result.usdwill also contain a reference, on its root prim (the root path component of clipPath) to the same-named prim inresult.topology.usd
result.usd is suitable for sublayering into a Layer Stack whose animation (at clipPath) is intended to be supplied by the input files.
Note that the animation content of the stitched result is completely dependent on the layout of timeSamples in the input USD files. So, in particular:
- If the input files contain only default values, there will be no animation, as Value Clips only look for timeSample values.
- When the
--templateMetadataargument has not been specified, then the startTimeCode and endTimeCode metadata of each clip layer will be used to determine the time-range over which that clip will be active, and all timeSamples within that range within the clip layer will be consumed. - When the
--templateMetadataargument has been specified, then the range over which each clip will be active is determined by the required--templatePathargument, and the two optional arguments--strideand--activeOffset:-
--templatePath: A regex-esque template string representing the form of our asset paths' names. This can be of two forms: 'path/basename.###.usd' and 'path/basename.###.###.usd'. These represent integer stage times and sub-integer stage times respectively. In both cases the number of hashes in each section is variable, and indicates to USD how much padding to apply when looking for asset paths. Note that USD is strict about the format of this string: there must be exactly one or two groups of hashes, and if there are two, they must be adjacent, separated by a dot. -
--stride: An optional (double precision float) number indicating the stride at which USD will increment when looking for files to resolve. For example, given a start time of 12, an end time of 25, a template string of 'path/basename.#.usd', and a stride of 6, USD will look to resolve the following paths: 'path/basename.12.usd', 'path/basename.18.usd' and 'path/basename.24.usd'. If no stride is specified, we will use the value 1.0. -
--activeOffset: An optional (double precision float) number indicating the offset USD will use when calculating the clipActive value that determines the time-range over which each clip is active.- Given a start time of 101, an endTime of 103, a stride of 1, and an offset of 0.5, USD will generate the following:
- clipTimes = [(100.5,100.5), (101,101), (102,102), (103,103), (103.5,103.5)]
- clipActive = [(101.5, 0), (102.5, 1), (103.5, 2)]
In other words, an offset allows us to slide the window into each clip in which USD will look for timeSamples to map into the stage's time, rather than simply using the window implied by each clip's filename.
- Note that theactiveOffsetcannot exceed the absolute value ofstride.
-
> usdstitchclips -h
usage: usdstitchclips [-h] [-o OUT] [-c CLIPPATH] [-s STARTTIMECODE]
[-r STRIDE] [-e ENDTIMECODE] [-t] [-p TEMPLATEPATH]
[--clipSet CLIPSET] [--activeOffset ACTIVEOFFSET] [-n]
usdFiles [usdFiles ...]
Stitch multiple usd file(s) together into one using value clips.
An example command is:
usdstitchclips --out result.usd --clipPath /World/fx/Particles_Splash clip1.usd clip2.usd
This will produce two files, a result.topology.usd and a result.usd.
positional arguments:
usdFiles
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-o OUT, --out OUT specify the filename for the top-level result file,
which also serves as base-name for the topology file.
-c CLIPPATH, --clipPath CLIPPATH
specify a prim path at which to begin stitching clip
data.
-s STARTTIMECODE, --startTimeCode STARTTIMECODE
specify the time at which the clips will become active
-r STRIDE, --stride STRIDE
specify a stride for the numeric component of
filenames for template metadata
-e ENDTIMECODE, --endTimeCode ENDTIMECODE
specify the time at which the clips will cease being
active
-t, --templateMetadata
author template clip metadata in the root layer.
-p TEMPLATEPATH, --templatePath TEMPLATEPATH
specify a template asset path to author
--clipSet CLIPSET specify a named clipSet in which to author clip
metadata, so that multiple sets of clips can be
applied on the same prim.
--activeOffset ACTIVEOFFSET
specify an offset for template-based clips, offsetting
the frame number of each clip file.
-n, --noComment do not write a comment specifying how the usd file was
generated
usddumpcrate
usddumpcrate provides information on usd files encoded using USD's Crate File Format.
> usddumpcrate -h usage: usddumpcrate [-h] [-s] inputFiles [inputFiles ...] Write information about a usd crate (usdc) file to stdout positional arguments: inputFiles optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -s, --summary report only a short summary
sdfdump
Provides information on Sdf Layers which underpin USD.
> sdfdump -h
Usage: sdfdump [options] <input file>
Options:
-h [ --help ] Show help message.
-s [ --summary ] Report a high-level summary.
--validate Check validity by trying to read all data
values.
-p [ --path ] regex Report only paths matching this regex.
-f [ --field ] regex Report only fields matching this regex.
-t [ --time ] n or ff..lf Report only these times or time ranges for
'timeSamples' fields.
--timeTolerance tol (=0.000125) Report times that are close to those
requested within this relative tolerance.
--sortBy path|field (=path) Group output by either path or field.
--noValues Do not report field values.
--fullArrays Report full array contents rather than number
of elements.
sdffilter
Provides information in a variety of formats (including usda-like) about Sdf Layers or specified (filtered) parts of a layer. Uses range from finding full information about specific properties, to creating "suitable for web/index display" versions of USD files that elide large array data.
> sdffilter -h
Usage: sdffilter [options] <input files>
Options:
-h [ --help ] Show help message.
-p [ --path ] regex Report only paths matching this regex.
For 'layer' and 'pseudoLayer' output
types, include all descendants of
matching paths.
-f [ --field ] regex Report only fields matching this regex.
-t [ --time ] n or ff..lf Report only these times or time ranges
for 'timeSamples' fields.
--timeTolerance tol (=0.000125) Report times that are close to those
requested within this relative
tolerance.
--arraySizeLimit N Truncate arrays with more than this
many elements. If -1, do not truncate
arrays. Default: 0 for 'outline'
output, 8 for 'pseudoLayer' output, and
-1 for 'layer' output.
--timeSamplesSizeLimit N Truncate timeSamples with more than
this many values. If -1, do not
truncate timeSamples. Default: 0 for
'outline' output, 8 for 'pseudoLayer'
output, and -1 for 'layer' output.
Truncation performed after initial
filtering by --time arguments.
-o [ --out ] outputFile Direct output to this file. Use the
'outputFormat' for finer control over
the underlying format for output
formats that are not uniquely
determined by file extension.
--outputType validity|summary|outline|pseudoLayer|layer (=outline)
Specify output format; 'summary'
reports overall statistics, 'outline'
is a flat text report of paths and
fields, 'pseudoLayer' is similar to the
sdf file format but with truncated
array values and timeSamples for human
readability, and 'layer' is true layer
output, with the format controlled by
the 'outputFile' and 'outputFormat'
arguments.
--outputFormat format Supply this as the 'format' entry of
SdfFileFormatArguments for 'layer'
output to a file. Requires both
'layer' output and a specified
'outputFile'.
--sortBy path|field (=path) Group 'outline' output by either path
or field. Ignored for other output
types.
--noValues Do not report field values for
'outline' output. Ignored for other
output types.
