3D Technologies and Solutions

This article describes some terms and solutions used in 3D visualization industry.

ATF

Autodesk translation framework, framework for data exchange.

BRDF

Bidirectional reflectance distribution function.

BSDF

Bidirectional scattering distribution function. Used as generalization for reflectance and transmittance, e.g. BSDF = BRDF + BTDF.

BTDF

Bidirectional transmittance distribution function.

Hydra (HD)

Framework to transport live scene graph data to renderer (originally USD to OpenGL render engine). Open source, developed by Pixar.

Irradiance

Radiant flux received by a surface per unit area. The unit of irradiance is the watt per square metre (W⋅m⁻²).

OGS

Open graphics system, viewport renderer used in Autodesk software (3ds Max, Maya, AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, Fusion, Infraworks, Navisworks, Recap, etc).

Not to be confused with OpenSceneGraph (OSG).

Radiance

Radiant flux emitted, reflected, transmitted, or received by a given surface, per unit solid angle per unit projected area. Unit for radiance is watt per steradian per square metre (W·sr⁻¹·m⁻²).