Oppo joins Adobe, Intel, Microsoft at Open 3D Foundation to build 3D video tech

Chinese electronics brand Oppo said earlier on Monday that it has joined the Open 3D Foundation (O3DF), a cross-industry alliance to build open source video technologies. The body already has members such as Adobe, Intel and Microsoft, and are responsible for contributing to a 3D graphic designing engine — called the Open 3D Engine (O3DE) — which claims to help independent developers create immersive video content for mobile platforms. 

Oppo said in an announcement that alongside contributing to the development and adaptation of the O3DE 3D graphics tech platform, it will look to “boost” the performance of the O3DE through its expertise in building features such as ray tracing on smartphones. 

On July 28, Royal O’Brien, executive director of O3DF and general manager of games and digital media at The Linux Foundation, told Mint that cross-industry collaborative platforms such as the O3DE could help smaller companies and independent developers build products such as smaller versions of the metaverse. 

“The concept of the metaverse that has been floated is an eventual idea, and it is not stitched together yet. Open-source tools can help independent creators build their own projects on the metaverse and other immersive video-first medium, which in the long run will come together to create what we’ll know of as the metaverse,” O’Brien said. 

Oppo, too, alluded to the ability of open-source collaboration in building the future of the metaverse. Hansen Hong, director of software technology planning at Oppo, said in a joint statement with O3DF that the 3D graphics technology could be an “essential element” of building products such as the metaverse. 

Oppo’s work with the O3DF appears to be largely centric to mobile devices. In its statement, Oppo said that it will look to create “smoother and more user-friendly mobile development experiences” for developers creating products using the O3DE — which will seemingly contribute to building “immersive and realistic rendering applications” for mobile platforms. 

Advanced graphics applications, however, have not taken off fully as yet — especially on mobile platforms. In January this year, Samsung unveiled its latest generation mobile chipset that featured the industry’s first ray tracing-enabled mobile GPU. Ray tracing is a technology that allows graphics engines to render ultra-realistic light and shadow effects, thereby producing more immersive video quality than before. 

However, the developer acceptance of such technology has remained limited — likely due to Samsung’s Exynos processors not having a massive market share at the moment. 

Going forward, it remains to be seen what effect do the likes of Intel, Microsoft and Oppo have in helping build a platform for developers to create immersive mobile video experiences.