Windows 10 Creators Update to bring a new 3D file format

Lately, Microsoft has been exploring their 3D manufacturing capabilities with their Paint 3D,  and the HoloLens venture. The new Paint 3D that is largely focused on a touch experience that allows users to hand draw professional portraits and masterpieces and is a modernized version of the original paint app that came pre-installed with older versions of Windows. It looks like is Microsoft is using their Windows 10 Creators Update is an eminent opportunity to introduce a new file format in this regard

Today Microsoft announced that they are joining hands with the 3D Formats working group at Khronos to cooperate on the development of their new 3D GL Transmission Format (glTF). The Khronos Group is an American non-profit member-funded industry consortium that works on the creation of open standard, royalty-free application programming interfaces (APIs). Moreover, it is used to authorize compatibility of different media sources on several platforms.

The glTF is a runtime asset distribution format for Graphics Library (GL) APIs like OpenGL, OpenGL ES, WebGL. It works as a  service for bridging the gap between 3D content creating tools and modern GL applications. It is also used as a shared medium to modify, edit and illustrate  3D objects, and is also referred to as the JPEG of 3D. Microsoft plans to implement glTF support using the open source BabylonJS framework. Though the glTF isn’t a completely unfamiliar file format and has been previously adopted by Google, Oculus and NVIDIA other than Microsoft, along with several other big names.

The Redmond based company has stated that “PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials” is one of the trending topics in public forums and have shown their interest in further accelerating the same discussion.

“As the working group starts thinking about the next version, we are especially interested in joining discussions about some of the subjects that have seen the biggest community momentum in the public forums. Physically Based Rendering (PBR) material proposal is one of those topics,” Microsoft continued.

Furthermore, Microsoft has also noted that PBR’s cross-platform capabilities will additionally compliment the glTF file format. Find out more about their work here, and in the meanwhile check out the company’s new Paint 3D Preview app that runs on machines supporting the Windows 10 Creators Update.