Sony Pictures Imageworks has contributed a software tool used to create movies like “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” “Hotel Transylvania 3,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” to the open source community.

OpenColorIO, a tool used for color management during the production process, has become the second software project of the Academy Software Foundation, an industry-wide open source association spearheaded by the Linux Foundation.

Sony Pictures Imageworks has for some time given the industry free and open access to OpenColorIO under a modified BSD license. By contributing the tool to the Academy Software Foundation, the studio hopes to encourage the community to take charge of the future of the tool, said Sony Pictures Imageworks vice president and head of software development Michael Ford.

“We want to contribute OpenColorIO back to the community that relies on it, and the Academy Software Foundation is the natural fit,” he said. “The developers and companies that use it every day will guide the project roadmap, starting with the features and release cadence for the new 2.0 version.”

The Academy Software Foundation was founded in August of 2018 as an industry-wide effort to advance the development and use of open source software in Hollywood. Founding members include Autodesk, Cisco, DreamWorks, Epic Games, Foundry, Google Cloud, Intel, Walt Disney Studios and others. Sony Pictures Entertainment/Sony Pictures Imageworks, Warner Bros., the Blender Foundation and the Visual Effects Society (VES) joined the group last fall.