Mars Rock SOL 102 captured using Apple ‘OC’ API

Here is a sample of a **USDZ** file from Apple’s brand new photogrammetry API called *Object Capture* that will allow developers to create custom ‘capture & view’ applications. After upgrading my M1 Mac Mini to MacOS 12 beta and downloading the new Xcode 13 beta, I was able to build the demo file with no problem. The sample code is only a command line based tool, but you really don’t need much more if you want to just take a series of images and convert to USDZ model. The API allows for a number of mesh and texture sizes, as well creating an AO and roughness layer if you choose the ‘full’ setting. There is a ‘raw’ mode that is suppose to provide the best settings, and separate texture files, but it does not seem to work. Sadly the USDZ 3D file format has very little support in open source tools like Blender and even Apple’s own ‘Reality Converter’ cannot open it. Good thing SketchFab can so I can actually look at the mesh & textures and even covert it to a glTF file to use in Blender. :)