VQVDB : AI VDB Compression in Houdini

Hey everyone,
If you've ever battled with multi-gigabyte VDB caches from pyro, I've been working on a project you might find interesting.

I'd like to introduce VQVDB, a free and open-source plugin for Houdini that uses a VQ-VAE neural network to compress OpenVDB float grids. The goal is to dramatically reduce the file size, up to 32x, of simulation caches, making them easier to store and faster to transfer.

You can grab it right now on GitHub: https://github.com/ZephirFXEC/VQVDB/releases [github.com]
The technical paper is available : https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29469083.v3 [doi.org]

Here’s a quick comparison showing the visual quality next to the original. The compression can achieve significant file size reduction while maintaining structural and visual detail.



And here’s a look at the simple workflow using the provided SOPs nodes.



This is an early release with some limitations:

• OS: Windows only (for now).
  
• Hardware: An NVIDIA GPU with CUDA support is strongly recommended, CPU is untested.
  
• Grid Type: Currently supports FloatGrid (scalar float) only.
  

This is just the beginning!
I'm planning to explore:

• Linux support.
  
• Remove dependencies and write GPU Agnostic backend
  
• Support for vector grids (Vec3fGrid).
  

This is an early release, and I'd love to get your feedback, hear your ideas, and find out about any bugs you encounter.
Feel free to open an Issue on the GitHub page.
Hope you find it useful!

Enzo C.

Stunning work Enzo, I'm going to try it ASAP

Thanks for sharing

Can you post a hip??not working on 20.5.613 dont seems to write cache

Rusoloco73
Can you post a hip??not working on 20.5.613 dont seems to write cache

Do you see any error messages ?
Also is this using VQVDB 0.0.3(latest) ?

If no errors, make sure the path exists, as it doesn't create the output folder for you.

EDIT :
After checking it's probably a problem with loading the DSO as many user seems to have that error. I need to find out what causes it and fix it.

That's an amazing work, can't wait to try it.

I downloaded your project, but as Rusoloco73 said, nothing is actually writing cache. Is there something special to do I miss, or is it a known issue unresolved yet ?

I'm on 20.5.278

Thanks in advance,

hime
That's an amazing work, can't wait to try it.

I downloaded your project, but as Rusoloco73 said, nothing is actually writing cache. Is there something special to do I miss, or is it a known issue unresolved yet ?

I'm on 20.5.278

Thanks in advance,

Hi ! It was a known issue due to dependencies missing, it caused the DSO to not be loaded thus the HDA weren't working.
VQVDB v0.0.6 fixes most of the dependencies issues, it has been tested on blank windows install and works ! You should be able to download it there :
https://github.com/ZephirFXEC/VQVDB/releases/tag/v0.0.6-alpha [github.com]

Also note that I built the plugin only for :
- 20.5.522
- 20.5.584
- 20.5.613