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The metaverse is envisioned by many as the next generation of the internet, a vast, unfettered 3D network of virtual and augmented spaces where people can engage in all the activities they do online — work, play, learn, explore — but in ways that feel more like real life. For this to happen, many layers of technology standards and protocols will need to be established and adopted by metaverse platforms. Enter the Metaverse Standards Forum (MSF)…

One of the major goals of the MSF is to create an open and inclusive metaverse. At present, we understand the metaverse in a very company-specific way. For instance, we know that Nvidia, one of the founding members of the MSF, has a metaverse for engineers called Omniverse, and the gaming platform Roblox is a metaverse in itself. However, the metaverse isn’t meant to be individual virtual spaces “owned” by a particular company where one cannot communicate with another. It is eventually supposed to be everyone’s, in the sense that all virtual worlds are interconnected.

The Metaverse Standards Forum has its work cut out for it, says Matt White, one of its representatives. “The concept of the Metaverse is that it can’t be centralised, can’t be under one platform,” he says. “It is a paradigm shift around ownership and identity that needs to be addressed.”

In June, the Khronos Group established the Metaverse Standards Forum. The impetus, explained Khronos president Neil Trevett, was the widespread confusion around standards. Organizations were basically coming to Khronos for guidance and saying, “standards community, get yourselves sorted out,” he said.

The Metaverse Standards Forum, which launched on 21 June 2022, isn’t trying to wrangle those details—not directly. But the forum sees an opportunity to get everyone to sit down at the same (probably virtual) table and hash out the basic technologies needed. With a more solid foundation, the forum believes, the metaverse can better develop and evolve.

The Metaverse Standards Forum è un’iniziativa consorziale che unisce le principali organizzazioni di sviluppo degli standard interoperabili Web/3D e brand commerciali per creare e condividere gli standard interoperabili necessari ad accelerare lo sviluppo delle applicazioni del metaverso. Da non confondere con la volontà di dare luogo a un metaverso unico, il Forum vede la presenza di realtà come Meta, Epic Games e Microsoft. Tra i grandi assenti della prima ora figurano Apple, AWS e Roblox.

It first started as a Birds of a Feather session, continued on as a podcast with conversations with technical experts, and then at SIGGRAPH 2022 a full-day course programming was put together to cover the current state, Metaverse Standards, and potential future directions. Kudos to Marc Petit (Epic Games) and Patrick Cozzi (Cesium) for organizing!

There’s a growing consensus that the potential of the metaverse will be best served by its being built on a foundation of open standards. The recently formed Metaverse Standards Forum provides a venue for cooperation between standards organizations and companies to...