Universal Scene Description (Crate) .usdc
USD’s binary crate encoding. Same data, memory-mapped and fast.
What a .usdc file holds
USDC is the binary “crate” encoding of Universal Scene Description. It holds exactly the same scene data as a .usda file, but in a form designed to be memory-mapped and read lazily, so a renderer can pull one prim out of a multi-gigabyte scene without parsing the rest. It is what production pipelines actually ship.
Commonly seen in: Pixar, RenderMan, Houdini, Omniverse, Maya.
| Data | Stored in USDC |
|---|---|
| Geometry | Yes |
| Materials and colour | Yes |
| Texture maps | Yes |
| Animation and rigs | Yes |
| Scene hierarchy | Yes |
| Read here | Yes |
| Written here | No |
Tested against a real file
The last sweep loaded suzanne.usdc from Assimp test models through the viewer on this site: 968 triangles across 1 meshes and 1 materials, in 1.9 seconds. Every format's result is on the test results page, run 2026-09-08.
Convert USDC to another format
Every pairing has a page saying what survives the trip.
Other things to do with a .usdc file
Questions about USDC
How do I open a .usdc file?
Drop it into the viewer on this site and it opens in the browser, with the scene tree, the materials and the mesh statistics. Nothing is uploaded. If you want it in another program instead, convert it to GLB, which almost everything reads.
Is USDC a good format to archive in?
USDC carries geometry, materials, textures and animation, so an archive copy keeps nearly everything. The usual caveat applies: a format is only as future-proof as the readers that exist for it, and .usdc is well served.
Does converting USDC lose quality?
Geometry is copied vertex for vertex, so the shape does not degrade. What gets lost is whatever the target format has no field for: convert to STL and the materials go, convert to OBJ and the animation goes. The comparison table on each converter page says exactly which.
Formats that hold the same things
Or go back to the full format reference.