move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 What does VDB stand for? 2 References 3 External links Toggle the table of contents OpenVDB 2 languages Català Français Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:   "OpenVDB"  –  news   · newspapers   · books   · scholar   · JSTOR ( February 2022 ) ( Learn how and when to remove this message ) Open source software library for working with sparse volumetric data OpenVDB Developers DreamWorks Animation , Academy Software Foundation Release August 3, 2012 ; 13 years ago  ( 2012-08-03 ) Stable release 13.0.0 [ 1 ]   / 4 November 2025 ; 7 months ago  ( 4 November 2025 ) Written in C++ Type Software library License Mozilla Public License 2.0 Website openvdb .org Repository github .com /AcademySoftwareFoundation /openvdb Free and open-source software portal OpenVDB is an open source software library for working with sparse volumetric data . It provides a hierarchical data structure and related functions to help with calculating volumetric effects in CGI applications. Volumetric effects apply to volumes, as opposed to just on surfaces. An example is fog. Specifically catering for feature film production, the library was originally developed by DreamWorks Animation and is currently maintained by the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF). The primary authors are Ken Museth, Peter Cucka, Mihai Aldén, and David Hill. OpenVDB is written in C++ and has Python bindings. OpenVDB is supported in a wide range of CGI software, such as Blender (since April 2016), Cinema 4D , Houdini , and RenderMan . It was first used in the films Puss in Boots (2011) [ 2 ] and Rise of the Guardians (2012). What does VDB stand for? [ edit ] Over the years VDB has been interpreted to mean different things, none of which are very descriptive: "Voxel Data Base", "Volumetric Data Blocks", "Volumetric Dynamic B+tree", etc. In early presentations of VDB even a different name was used, "DB+Grid", which was abandoned to emphasize its distinction from similarly named, but different, existing sparse data structures like DT-Grid or DB-Grid. The simple truth is that "VDB" is just a name. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] References [ edit ] ^ "Release 13.0.0" . 4 November 2025 . Retrieved 6 November 2025 . ^ "DreamWorks Animation Releases Proprietary Volumetric Format OpenVDB to Open Source Community" (PDF) . ^ "OpenVDB Frequently Asked Questions" . Retrieved 2022-02-24 . ^ "CppCast Episode 227: OpenVDB with Ken Museth" . YouTube . Retrieved 2023-08-16 . External links [ edit ] Official website openvdb on GitHub This computer-library -related article is a stub . You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information . v t e Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenVDB&oldid=1328587974 " Categories : 2012 software C++ libraries DreamWorks Animation Computer library stubs Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from February 2022 All articles needing additional references Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia All stub articles This page was last edited on 20 December 2025, at 19:00  (UTC) . Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Legal & safety contacts Code of Conduct Developers Statistics Cookie statement Mobile view Search Search Toggle the table of contents OpenVDB 2 languages Add topic