Overview
ISO/IEC 23090-17:2021 specifies the reference software and conformance materials for the Omnidirectional Media Format (OMAF) defined in ISO/IEC 23090‑2. Its primary purpose is to provide a validated implementation and test vectors to support interoperable packaging, parsing and conformance checking of immersive omnidirectional media stored in ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF) containers.
Key deliverables in the standard:
- Reference software (libomaf and omaf_tool) implemented in C/C++ with CMake builds.
- Conformance test vectors (MP4/ISOBMFF files, DASH MPDs and segments) covering OMAF profiles.
- Documentation mapping between OMAF boxes and reference software data structures.
Reference code and test vectors are published by ISO (see the official ISO/IEC 23090-17:2021 distribution).
Key Topics and Requirements
- Reference software components
- libomaf: extends an ISOBMFF library to implement OMAF-specific atoms/boxes and APIs for creating/parsing OMAF metadata.
- omaf_tool: command-line utility to parse ISOBMFF files and export OMAF metadata to JSON, or to package video into OMAF-compliant MP4 using a JSON configuration.
- Feature coverage
- Parsing support for core OMAF features such as projection formats (equirectangular, packed equirectangular/cube), fisheye video, region-wise packing, rotation, coverage and region-quality metadata.
- Packaging support exists for a subset of features; some advanced or version‑2 features (multiple viewpoints, overlays, dynamic viewpoint information, sub-picture tracks) are not supported by the reference implementation.
- Conformance & test vectors
- Provides test sets for HEVC-based viewport-independent and viewport-dependent OMAF video profiles, and HEVC image profiles, with DASH MPDs and segments for conformance testing.
- The reference tools enable syntactic correctness and value-range checks against ISO/IEC 23090‑2.
Applications and Who Uses It
- Immersive media implementers and vendors building OMAF-compliant encoders, packagers and players.
- Streaming platform engineers and QA teams using test vectors and tools for interoperability testing (DASH, MPD).
- VR/AR application developers integrating omnidirectional content and needing validated metadata handling (projection, viewport hints, region-quality).
- Standards bodies and researchers validating implementations against ISO/IEC 23090‑2.
Related Standards
Keywords: ISO/IEC 23090-17:2021, OMAF, omnidirectional media format, reference software, conformance, libomaf, omaf_tool, ISOBMFF, HEVC, DASH, MPD, test vectors.