Academy's ACES joins ASWF to increase open-source contributions
August 6, 2025

Academy's ACES joins ASWF to increase open-source contributions

LOS ANGELES - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy Software Foundation (www.aswf.io) have announced that the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) - a global standard for color management - is joining the ASWF, which serves as a home for open source software developers in the motion picture and broader industries.
 
Developed and maintained by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for more than a decade, ACES is an open-source framework for color management and image interchange across the entire motion picture production life cycle, from on-set acquisition, visual effects, post production, mastering and archiving. It has become a standard for ensuring a consistent color experience and maintaining creative vision, and has been used on films such as Captain America: Brave New World, The Wild Robot and Wicked. The release of ACES 2.0 this past spring introduced numerous enhancements, including improved color rendering, more consistent display across different dynamic ranges, better transform invertibility and expanded support for custom output devices.

As an Academy Software Foundation project, ACES will leverage the Foundation’s open governance model, legal framework and community infrastructure, increasing the quality and quantity of open-source contributions to ACES. This move will benefit both creative users and technical implementers, driving collaboration and integration between ACES and other key open-source projects, such as OpenColorIO, OpenEXR and MaterialX.

“The Academy Software Foundation was created to ensure that we have a healthy, vibrant open-source community that can maintain and grow the projects that the motion picture industry relies on,” explains David Morin, executive director of the Academy Software Foundation. “Over the past seven years, we have seen a dramatic increase in developer participation, cross-industry collaboration and community adoption of Academy Software Foundation projects. ACES is a critical project for our industry, and we are honored to provide a home where it will continue to thrive and grow.”

As an Academy Software Foundation project, ACES development will be guided by a Technical Steering Committee composed of long-standing members of the ACES leadership and development community, ensuring continuity of vision while welcoming expanded participation. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will continue to participate actively in the development of ACES at the Academy Software Foundation.