Shaping the Future of Immersive Media: The Work of AOMedia’s Volumetric Visual Media Working Group

The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) has long been known for advancing open, royalty-free technologies that power digital experiences around the world. In 2022, the organization launched the Volumetric Visual Media (VVM)working group to focus on a rapidly emerging field: the efficient coding and streaming of volumetric media.

Volumetric visual media refers to three-dimensional (3D) representations of people, objects, or environments that can be viewed from any angle. Unlike traditional 2D video, which fixes perspective, volumetric media enables free navigation and interaction essential for applications in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), gaming, telepresence, and beyond.

In a recent conversation, Khaled Mammou, Co-chair of the AOMedia VVM working group, described how the group is developing the standards that will make volumetric experiences both practical and scalable.

Defining the Mission

The VVM working group develops specifications for compressing and streaming volumetric content across broadcast, download, and interactive applications. Its scope is intentionally focused: compression technologies that integrate with scene graph representations. This means the group is not working on transport formats, audio or haptics, or rendering technologies, but on the critical piece that determines whether volumetric media can be stored, transmitted, and displayed efficiently at scale.

As Mammou notes, “Our focus is on compression technologies that make volumetric visual media usable in real-world applications.”

From Concept to Standardization

“Although still relatively new, the group has moved quickly,” said Mammou. After its creation in February 2022, the VVM issued a Call for Proposals (CfP) in May 2023 to establish a baseline for its first standard: Polygonal Mesh Coding (PMC). Polygonal meshes are a common way of representing 3D surfaces. “Efficiently coding and streaming these meshes is central to enabling immersive applications,” he observed.

Responses to the CfP were evaluated later that year, and by March 2024, the first PMC test model (TM 1.0) was released. In July 2025, version 11.0 of the test model was introduced, stabilizing the tools.

“The working group expects to finalize the PMC standard by the end of 2025 — a major milestone that will give developers and hardware manufacturers a clear target to support in next-generation applications.”

Collaboration Across Industry

The working group includes a wide range of companies with deep expertise in media technologies. “These organizations are working together to ensure that the standard addresses the needs of developers, platform providers, and end users,” said Mammou.

Beyond internal collaboration, the VVM has also begun building external bridges. “We have established a liaison with the Alliance of Open USD (AOUSD), which is focused on the Universal Scene Description (USD) format.” USD is a growing standard for describing complex 3D scenes, and combining it with VVM compression technologies will make storing and streaming rich immersive content far more efficient.

Real-World Potential

Although the standard is not yet complete, the potential applications of volumetric media are vast. Consider a few examples drawn from research and industry experiments:

• Telepresence and immersive meetings: Real-time, low-latency communication with photorealistic rendering, where participants can interact as if they are in the same room. (One of the remaining pitfalls of video calls is that they still don’t enable real eye contact, which is vital for meaningful connections.)

• Replay broadcasting: Sports fans could relive a moment from any angle, not just those captured by a single camera.

• Gaming and social media: Players and users can capture and share lifelike 3D assets, increasing realism while lowering the barrier to content creation.

• Education and training: Medical students could practice surgery on interactive 3D anatomical models; engineers could train with virtual replicas of machinery.

• Film production and virtual sets: Directors can shoot against immersive, photorealistic backgrounds created from 3D captures of real environments.

Each of these scenarios depends on efficient compression to manage the massive data requirements of volumetric media — and that is exactly what the VVM group is solving.

Looking Ahead: The Next Decade of Immersive Media

When asked about the future, Mammou emphasizes the growing importance of volumetric compression as immersive platforms continue to expand. “With the development of AR and VR platforms, efficient compression and streaming of volumetric visual media will become as critical as compression is today for 2D video.”

Key areas of focus over the next 5–10 years include:

• Standardized formats: Creating a mature set of standards for volumetric media that work seamlessly with scene description formats like USD and glTF (Graphics Library Transmission Format).

• Hardware acceleration: Implementing volumetric coding in hardware to enable real-time, low-latency performance on power-constrained devices like smartphones and headsets.

• Scalable adoption: Ensuring that tools and formats are accessible to a wide range of industries, from consumer applications to specialized professional use cases.

“The ultimate goal is to make immersive, interactive experiences accessible to anyone, across devices and platforms,” Mammou commented.

Help Us Shape the New Frontiers of Digital Media

The work of the Volumetric Visual Media working group represents an important step toward the future of digital experiences. By developing open standards for efficient volumetric compression, AOMedia is laying the foundation for everything from immersive education and telepresence to gaming, film production, and cultural preservation.

If you or your organization want to help shape this future, consider joining AOMedia and contributing to the standards that will power the next generation of media.

Want to learn more and see how you can get involved? Contact the VVM working group: wg-vvm-chair@aomedia.org