Katana Studio Streamlines Automotive Marketing With Real-Time App Built on NVIDIA Omniverse

Katana needed the flexibility to build a solution that suited their needs, aligned with their skillset, and interoperates easily with their existing pipeline. Omniverse’s modular components allowed them to integrate only what they needed from the platform. For example, the COATcreate high-fidelity viewport provides photoreal, ray-traced rendering, powered by the Omniverse RTX Renderer. The overall experience and user-friendly interface is delivered over the WebGL API, and pixels are streamed from the cloud. 

COATcreate accesses CAD data, represented as USD, allowing a user to visualize and change scene data in real time, and manage a set of preconfigured variant sets such as trim, colors, and wheel options. These modular features support Nissan’s real-time, web-based production pipeline—empowering non-technical users across regions to generate high-quality marketing content. What once took weeks can now be done in hours, thanks to COATcreate’s cloud-native design and seamless integration with OpenUSD."COAT and USD unlock the ability to create high-quality, photorealistic content, enabling designers and art directors to create what they want in real time," said Cappy Childs, chief operating officer at Katana Studio. “Previously, you spend all this time preparing data for one shot, and then throw it away. Now we can repurpose it later for other shots. It’s like a paradigm shift for artists and clients because they're creating something with longevity versus single use.”

The Katana team developed technology to further leverage OpenUSD and Omniverse integration, named Virtual Variant Sets. These simplify how users access and toggle through multiple variants of different assets, such as the car or environment options that have been created during the data prep stage. This is similar to the way a product configurator functions. 

“We also capture metadata in the USD file and incorporate it into rendered stills, allowing users to share a live link,” said Damian Fulman, global director of technology at Katana Studio. “This metadata-capturing capability not only improves version control but also supports AI-assisted workflows and digital twin continuity—helping Nissan and other customers future-proof their content libraries. COATcreate’s intelligent asset reuse model is now enabling global campaigns across North America, Mexico, and Australia, with hundreds of high-quality assets spun from a single pipeline.

With this foundation in OpenUSD and real-time collaboration, the Katana team sees even more opportunities ahead.

One area of rapid growth is extended reality (XR), which is transforming how teams interact with their data-rich 3D content. By repurposing production-grade assets for immersive environments, organizations can streamline everything from design validation to customer engagement—without duplicating effort or compromising visual fidelity. XR enables stakeholders to step into a scene, view vehicles at scale, and experience configurations or design options in context—all powered by the same asset pipeline used in marketing and engineering.

“XR is now being used across a wide range of applications—from design reviews and dealership experiences to special events and internal evaluations,” added Fulman.

“Anytime you'd want a real car present but can’t ship or fit it, XR is the perfect solution.”