Pixar has just released a new library into the wild called “OpenSubdiv”, a high-performance subdivision surface library made popular initially with projects like Geri’s Game.

OpenSubdiv is a set of open source libraries that implement high performance subdivision surface (subdiv) evaluation on massively parallel CPU and GPU architectures. This codepath is optimized for drawing deforming subdivs with static topology at interactive framerates. The resulting limit surface matches Pixar’s Renderman to numerical precision. The code embodies decades of research and experience by Pixar, and a more recent and still active collaboration on fast GPU drawing between Microsoft Research and Pixar.

OpenSubdiv is covered by an opensource license, and is free to use for commercial or non-commercial use. This is the same code that Pixar uses internally for animated film production. Our intent is to encourage high performance accurate subdiv drawing by giving away the “good stuff”.

Pixar Animation Studios Open Subdivision Technology Review


Interactive raytracing visualization of OpenSubdiv subdivision surface.

Download

The source code for OpenSubdiv is located on github and is entering open beta for SIGGRAPH 2012.
Download it here
Platforms supported: Windows, Linux, limited OSX.

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