Metaverse Standards Forum Incorporates as Independent Consortium

The Metaverse Standards Forum reached a major operational milestone after becoming an independent non-profit industry consortium, it announced on Monday.

Neil Trevett, President, Khronos Group, explained that interoperability was essential to the Metaverse scaling to its full potential “beyond siloed games, experiences, and worlds.”

The Metaverse Standards Forum has incorporated as a non-profit & I got an update from @neilt3d on 4 approved @Metaverse_Forum working groups & 6 exploratory groups, which are at the frontier of shaping what an open, interoperable metaverse will look like. https://t.co/5X2QoGDtqY pic.twitter.com/yrs6cM6EKq

— Kent Bye (Voices of VR) (@kentbye) April 18, 2023

Unprecedented participation in the Forum also demonstrated a “strong industry interest in the broad cooperation necessary to bring that vision to life.”

He added,

“The Forum does not itself develop standards but exists to help accelerate the mission of any industry initiative working for metaverse interoperability through fostering participation, building cooperative consensus and insights, and driving wider visibility for their efforts. We invite all interested organizations to participate in the now fully independent Forum”

According to the Forum, it launched with 37 founding members and has expanded with numerous companies, organisations, consortia, vendors, and hardware manufacturers.

“All Members are enabled to participate in Forum Working Group meetings and Forum activities are non-confidential, with all deliverables being freely and publicly distributed,” it explained.

Charters outline short-term projects to back interoperability requirements and testing, leading to the acceleration of member goals.

Tasks of the First-Ever Working Group

Metaverse Standards Register to build a public database to map metaverse standardisation activities and open standards across the current industry.

3D Asset Interoperability to align and boost cooperation on USD and glTF 3D file formats

Real and Virtual World Integration to facilitate interoperability across use cases, including digital twins and visual positioning systems (VPS)

Asset Management for exploring digital rights standards and determining identity, protection, transport, exchange, protection, and monetisation of assets.

Additionally, the organisation supports several Forum Exploratory Groups to build consensus on charters for future Working Groups. These will focus on avatars, 3D web interoperability, wearables, digital fashion, networks, cybersecurity, privacy, and others. Forum members can join, propose, or be elected to lead Working Groups.

Progress of the Metaverse Standards Forum

The Metaverse Standards Forum has aimed to rally members across the virtual, augmented, mixed, and extended reality (VR/AR/MR/XR) industry. The goal is to create an open-source Metaverse with greater interoperability.

It creates Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs) to boost collaboration across those developing the Metaverse after inking Participating Agreements. The latter allows members to participate in hackathons, open-source tools, plugfests, and other events.

Some of the top members of the Forum include IKEA, Alibaba, rooom, Adobe, Huawei, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony, Unity, and many others. It also hosts the World Wide Web Consortium, Web3D Consortium, and XR Association (XRA).

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Launched in June last year by open-source firm Khronos Group, the consortium has skyrocketed in membership to 2,400 people and several Working and Exploratory Groups.

Together, the Forum continues to facilitate and promote cooperative efforts on metaverse interoperability. It works with standards organisations, universities, experts, and companies to reach the industry’s fullest potential.

The Forum has recently organised its finances, operations, and governance structures. Paid membership levels allow the Forum to elect its leaders and fund projects.