Case Study – From CAD to OpenUSD: Building Trek’s 3D Digital Bike Factory (Trek Bicycle)

Scaling high-quality 3D product content across a complex product catalog requires more than better asset creation. It requires a repeatable digital pipeline built on trusted product data.

At Trek, we are moving from one-off creative workflows toward an automated CAD-to-OpenUSD pipeline that turns engineering and product data into structured, reusable 3D assets. This session will go behind the scenes of that pipeline and show how Houdini is used as an orchestration layer to ingest CAD, connect product context from PLM and BOM data, optimize geometry procedurally, and generate deterministic OpenUSD foundations for downstream use.

The goal is not to remove artists from the process. The goal is to separate repeatable data-heavy work from judgment-based creative work. Automation establishes a reliable baseline; artists build on top of that foundation with the materials, decals, polish, and product accuracy that represent the Trek brand.

Attendees will leave with practical strategies for structuring scalable 3D data flows, clarifying ownership between automated systems and creative teams, and building a durable OpenUSD foundation capable of supporting rendering, configurators, interactive product experiences, and future enterprise digital twin workflows.