USDZ
USDZ is a package format for delivering a Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) asset as a single file. The package can contain a USD scene together with referenced resources such as textures, making a 3D object easier to transfer, preview, and embed.
USD describes geometry, materials, transformations, cameras, animation, variants, and relationships between elements of a scene. USDZ packages those scene components for distribution while following specific archive, alignment, and file-layout rules defined by the OpenUSD USDZ specification.
Apple uses USDZ throughout its 3D and augmented-reality workflows. Safari, Messages, Mail, and other supported applications can present USDZ objects through AR Quick Look on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro.
1 Active development on Apple platforms
Apple continues to develop USDZ as a central delivery format for spatial content rather than treating it as a finished, static standard. Reality Composer Pro, RealityKit, Xcode, Quick Look, and visionOS all build on the broader USD ecosystem, while new spatial-content types are being added to the workflow.
An important recent development is support for Gaussian splats in RealityKit on visionOS 27. Apple’s current sample loads Gaussian-splat data from a USDZ asset and renders it as an interactive RealityKit entity. This allows photographic volumetric scenes to be packaged in USDZ alongside the metadata needed by the application.
Gaussian splats inside USDZ are a new Apple-platform workflow. A USDZ file containing splat data should not yet be assumed to render in every older USDZ viewer, web viewer, or application.
See Apple’s Gaussian splats on visionOS sample and the visionOS developer pathway for the current RealityKit and USDZ workflow.