Alembic (VFX Geometry Cache)
Open BetaExport 3D buildings to Alembic (.abc) -- the industry standard for VFX and film. Optimized for large scenes with millions of polygons. Used in Houdini, Maya, Blender.
Key Features
About Alembic Format
Alembic (.abc) is an open format for exchanging baked geometry, created at Sony Pictures Imageworks and ILM. In film and at VFX studios it is used to pass scenes between packages: the file stores already computed vertices and polygons, without procedural dependencies or construction history, so it opens the same way in Houdini, Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D and Unreal.
A map is exported to Alembic when the city is needed as a ready asset in a heavy scene: a background for a shot, an environment for a camera fly-through, a base for a simulation. The format takes scenes with a large number of objects in its stride and does not drag along the materials and settings of a particular editor.
The output is a single .abc archive: every building is written as a separate polygonal mesh, with a flat base underneath them. The geometry is built in meters and centered on the selected area. There is no animation in the file: it is a static single-frame scene, and you set the camera and object motion yourself.
What Program Opens Alembic Files
The following programs and applications can open, edit, and work with Alembic (VFX Geometry Cache) (.abc) files exported from OSM2CDR:
Format specifications
- Open standard
- 3D coordinates supported
- Lossless (no quality loss)
- Stores feature attributes
- Output: 1 file
- Alembic .abc (Sony / ILM open). VFX exchange format for geometry caches. Houdini, Maya, Blender, Unreal.
Who Uses Alembic Maps
How to Export Alembic
How to Open After Export
- Blender — File → Import → Alembic (.abc); the scene arrives as a set of meshes, which are convenient to gather into a collection right away.
- Houdini — a File or Alembic node in the geometry context; from there the buildings can be split into groups and fed into your own procedures.
- Maya — Cache → Alembic Cache → Import Alembic; for large scenes choose the import as gpuCache so the viewport does not sag.
- Cinema 4D and Unreal Engine — import .abc out of the box; in Unreal pick Static Mesh mode, since there is no animation in the file.
- Materials — there are none in the file, assign your own: the geometry arrives clean, split into separate building objects.
Popular maps in Alembic
Get Alembic (VFX Geometry Cache) map exports
Download professional Alembic maps from OpenStreetMap. Instant generation, any area.