Khronos glTF 2.0 Released as an ISO/IEC International Standard

August 09, 2022

News

The Khronos Group announced that its glTF 2.0 specification for the efficient transmission and loading of 3D models has been released as the ISO/IEC 12113:2022 International Standard.

Khronos has successfully completed the transposition of glTF 2.0 through the ISO/IEC JTC 1 PAS (Publicly Available Specification) Submission Process to solidify glTF’s global recognition and accelerate its adoption by industry and other standards. Khronos will continue to evolve glTF as a Khronos specification and regularly update ISO/IEC 12113 with available glTF functionality to avoid industry fragmentation.

glTF™ is a royalty-free specification for the efficient transmission and loading of 3D scenes and models. glTF minimizes the runtime processing to unpack and process 3D assets, while enabling sophisticated pervasive graphics functionality. glTF defines an extensible, common publishing format for 3D content, tools and services that streamlines authoring workflows and enables interoperable use of content across the industry. The ISO/IEC 12113:2022 specification is available here.

In May 2021, ISO/IEC JTC 1 approved Khronos as a PAS submitter, one of only 15 SDOs (Standards Developing Organizations) globally that are enabled to submit adopted industry standards for transposition to International Standards. glTF 2.0 was submitted to JTC 1 in October 2021 and was unanimously approved as an International Standard by all voting national standards bodies with no requested technical changes.

“In 2013, Khronos launched the glTF initiative with the goal to create a 3D asset format that was as pervasive as JPEG for images - and now glTF, like JPEG, is an International Standard,” said Neil Trevett, vice president developer ecosystems at NVIDIA and Khronos president. “ISO/IEC International Standards are recognized throughout the world, and often constitute the technical regulatory basis for public procurement of IT goods and services. Khronos is proud to be an ISO/IEC JTC 1 PAS Submitter, and intends to proactively transpose additional widely-adopted Khronos specifications to International Standards for the benefit of the industry.”

Under the JTC 1 PAS transposition process, Khronos retains full control over the glTF specification, and glTF’s status as an ISO/IEC standard will not slow its evolution. Khronos will make regular submissions to bring updates and new widely adopted glTF functionality into refreshed versions of ISO/IEC 12113 to ensure that there is no long-term divergence between the ISO/IEC and Khronos specifications. This provides developers the choice to use the Khronos specification that defines the latest glTF functionality and extensions, or ISO/IEC 12113 for the compatible set of glTF functionality that has been approved as an International Standard.

For more information, visit: khronos.org/glTF.