Facebook 3D Posts was a feature on the

social network A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

ing website

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. It was first enabled on October 11, 2017 by introducing a new native 3D media type in Facebook

News Feed Facebook's Feed, formerly known as the News Feed, is a web feed feature for the social network. The feed is the primary system through which users are exposed to content posted on the network. Feed highlights information that includes profile ...

. Initially the users could only post 3D objects from Oculus Medium and marker drawings from Spaces directly to Facebook as fully interactive 3D objects. The feature was available for desktops and mobile phones that support the underlying

WebGL WebGL (short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript Application programming interface, API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-in (computing), plug-ins. WebGL is fully integra ...

API. On February 20, 2018 Facebook added support for the industry-standard

glTF glTF (Graphics Library Transmission Format or GL Transmission Format and formerly known as WebGL Transmissions Format or WebGL TF) is a standard file format for three-dimensional scenes and models. A glTF file uses one of two possible file exte ...

2.0 file format for Facebook 3D posts. This allowed artists and creators to share 3D content on Facebook from a variety of sources. To make 3D Posts glTF 2.0 compliant, the support for textures, lighting, and

physically based rendering Physically based rendering (PBR) is a computer graphics approach that seeks to render images in a way that models the lights and surfaces with optics in the real world. It is often referred to as "Physically Based Lighting" or "Physically Based ...

techniques was implemented. 3D posts also supported unlit workflows for

photogrammetry Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...

and stylized art. Facebook has since disallowed users from sharing 3D objects.

Creating 3D Posts

There were four ways to get a 3D asset to appear in a Facebook Post: * Drag and drop an asset into Facebook's Post composer and publish it. * Share a link to a web page that has Facebook Open Graph Sharing metadata tags. * Share a local asset on an Android device using Android's native Sharing action. * Create a 3D Post programmatically with the 3D Posts API.

Tools for authoring content

GLB files (binary form of glTF) were required to be loaded in Facebook 3D posts. These files could be obtained by converting from other files formats such as FBX or non-binary glTF. GLB files could also be directly exported from a variety of 3D editors, such as

Blender A blender (sometimes called a mixer (from Latin ''mixus, the PPP of miscere eng. to Mix)'' or liquidiser in British English) is a kitchen and laboratory appliance used to mix, crush, purée or emulsify food and other substances. A stationary ...

, Vectary,

Autodesk 3ds Max Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capa ...

(using Verge3D exporter),

Autodesk Maya Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya (; ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for inter ...

, Modo, Microsoft

Paint 3D Paint 3D is a retired raster graphics and 3D computer graphics application which is a refresh of Microsoft Paint. It is one of several 3D modeling and printing applications (formatted under 3MF) introduced or improved with the Windows 10 Crea ...

, Substance Painter and others.

References

Facebook Social software Software features Internet properties established in 2017 {{web-software-stub