usd-blender-plugins v0.1.0

usd-blender-plugins v0.1.0

Release date: 2026-10-05
GitHub release

The first public release of a read-only OpenUSD .blend file format and the
standalone blend_inspect tool. Blender is not linked or required to import
the supported saved data.

Scope

• A bounded native container reader: plain, gzip and Zstandard inputs,
  headers, blocks, SDNA layouts and saved-address references, with contextual
  diagnostics.
• Blender-neutral Scene IR and source Mesh/Empty import: saved transforms,
  selected scene membership, hierarchy, mesh topology, UVs and normals.
• A conventional /Asset USD stage, Y-up and meters, with stage contract
  version 1. Repeated reads, metadata-only reads and USD references are
  covered by the registered-plugin tests.
• Hierarchy-preserving Empty fallback for validated known unsupported Object
  data, with diagnostics rather than invented Camera/Light/image semantics.
• blend_inspect for container summaries, blocks, DNA and raw Object records,
  without OpenUSD.

The maintained scope is the committed Blender 5.2.2 source Mesh/Empty
evidence, not all Blender 5.x files or evaluated scenes. Existing older-version
decoders and fixtures are retained as regression evidence, not full support.
Materials, images, Camera/Light schemas, animation, armatures, instance
expansion and Blender dependency-graph evaluation are not part of this release.

See the tagged capability matrix,
stage contract,
version policy and
full changelog for the exact boundaries.

Binary configurations

OS	Architecture	OpenUSD	Python ABI	OpenStrata target
Windows	x86_64, MSVC 2022 / msvc143	26.08	3.13	cy2026-windows-x86_64-py313-usd
Linux	x86_64, Ubuntu 24.04 runner	26.08	3.13	cy2026-linux-x86_64-py313-usd

Binary compatibility is with the digest-pinned CY2026 usd / gl runtime
SDKs in the CI matrix, not arbitrary OpenUSD 26.08
builds. No macOS binary is supplied.

Assets

For each target, the release supplies:

• usd-blender-plugins-0.1.0-<target>-plugin-product.tar.zst: the aggregate
  containing the plugin and CLI, their manifests and evidence.
• usdBlendFileFormat-0.1.0-<target>.tar.zst: the independently installable
  plugin with its required native libraries.
• blend_inspect-0.1.0-<target>.tar.zst: the standalone inspection tool.
• Target-qualified manifest and SPDX SBOM sidecars for all three archives.
• Separate debug archives when the build produces separate symbols.

Also supplied: usd-blender-plugins-0.1.0-src.tar.gz and SHA256SUMS.
The binary archives do not include OpenUSD or Python.

Installation and activation are in the install guide.

Verification and release process

The release workflow builds the root
workspace and standalone bundle against the same pinned Windows/Linux SDKs as
the pull-request lane. It gates packaging on root CTests, standalone USD
CTests, explicit plugin diagnostics and registered stage-contract tests.

It packages twice and requires identical archive digests, runs L0-L5 against
the extracted packages, and repeats the stage-contract suite and inspection
CLI against an aggregate extracted outside the repository. The clean-install
check verifies that the registered plugin comes from that install and is not
discoverable without its registration.

A tag creates a draft only after every target passes. The source archive,
release notes and checksums are assembled from that same tagged tree.
Maintainer checks and publication are described in
the release procedure.