May 13, 2020

Video Conference Link

Attendance

Minutes

• Administrative details [0:00-0:05]

  • Meeting agenda document access

  • Find and add/correct your name, trim colleagues that won’t be attending

  • Agenda location in github for future meetings

  • https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/wg-usd

  • Communications on usd-interest once WG is ratified

    • Wave: Will there be a slack channel?

    • Cory: Let’s do that

    • John: Done

• Recap of past scoping meetings [0:05-0:15]

  • Cory: two meetings in March before hiatus until now.

  • Notes available on GH

• Clarification of WG goals/non-goals [0:15-0:45]

  • Cory: conferred with USD team at Pixar about their views on contributions of most value (see WG readme)

    • WG Goal 1: Assist community members with issues raised in USD support channels

    • WG Goal 2: Consolidate and share best practices for deployment of USD technologies

    • WG Non-goal: Not a steering committee; no special influence on direction of the USD project

    • Schema alignment is a non-goal

  • Cory: Let’s discuss deliverables for WG to focus on

  • Wave: examples of asset structures, shot / sequence structures, naming conventions

  • Gordon: need to capture rationale, discussion as well as final artifact

  • Daniel: is there a good descriptive approach to follow? Design Patterns? Python Enhancement Proposals?

  • Sean: How are the ideas proposed, discussed, accepted / ratified?

  • Wave: PR process seems very suitable

  • Cory: Perhaps ratified examples can be considered for migration into USD documentation

  • MichaelMin: Netflix goal is to have standards that allow for exchange of assets and materials between studios

    • Consistency

    • Encapsulation (namespacing etc)

    • Hoping for these standards to be applicable across different styles of project (documentary, episodic, live-action, animated)

  • Cory: Let’s refine wording for deliverables. PEP-style?

  • Wave: API examples are more useful, valuable than USDA

  • Sean: Would programmatic examples be run against CI?

  • MarkTucker: Another request / deliverable would be Python documentation (not just C++)

  • Cory: Will follow up with USD team about releasing Python docs

  • Eric: Nvidia has slim bridge doc https://developer.nvidia.com/usd/apinotes

  • Wave: Windows, Mac developer, run-time environment support?

  • Daniel: Would a working cross-platform CI environment for USD be a valuable deliverable for the existing goals?

  • Cory: Yes, will add to README

  • SeanMcDuffee: Would this extend to binary downloads?

  • Cory: Hopefully

  • SeanMcDuffee: Are hardware, data center factors, performance discussions or measurements in-scope?

  • SeanLooper: Benchmarks would be valuable

• Action Items, Agenda for next meeting [0:45-0:50]

Action Items

• John: Set up wg-usd slack channel under ASWF

• Cory: Add slack channel to wg readme as communication channel

• Cory: Follow up with USD team on publishing of Python docs.

  • Python docs exist but are not yet published anywhere.

  • Doc strings also exist, but the mechanism to build them out in the open source project needs to be fixed.