The Khronos Group releases new extension for compressed textures, allowing for even more compact glTF assets, which can be used in real-time on any desktop operating system or mobile device. The KHR_texture_basisu extension is the outcome of the glTF Universal Texture initiative. It leverages the benefits of the Basis Universal compression technology and the Khronos’ KTX 2.0 container. RapidCompact makes it possible to quickly and easily optimize your 3D assets and apply KTX 2.0 compression.

See an example of a 3D model with Khronos KTX 2.0 Basis Texture compression in this 3D viewer.

3D models in glTF format can be even more compact and efficient when utilizing texture compression. This is another important part of making 3D technology become more accessible as more real-time applications are enabled. Highly compressed files save GPU memory use and load quickly, may it be in a 3D web-viewer or in AR or VR environments. Therefore, this extension is another contribution of the Khronos Group to enable 3D commerce use-cases. Earlier, the 3D Commerce Working Group had released Asset Creation Guidelines to support the streamlining of 3D processes in e-commerce.

In their release post, the Khronos Group explains what they expect from the new KHR_texture_basisu extension. Furthermore, they tell where tools can be found to create, transcode, and upload Universal Textures to WebGL, OpenGL, and Vulkan. RapidCompact supports this extension already. You can make use of it when optimizing your 3D model for your real-time use-case.

If you are interested in participating in the work of the Khronos Group in general or the glTF working group in specific, feel free to get in touch with them. There are many ways you can contribute to glTF as a standard in 3D file formats.