Upload 3D assets to facilitate an immersive buyer experience

Showpad enables sellers to deliver a visual strategy that immerses prospects in any type of product, delivering an interactive buyer experience. By supporting 3D models, your sales team can engage prospects without spending the time and expenses tied to a physical product. You can offer a detailed view of complex objects and customizations without any limitations. Uploading multiple 3D versions of your product can accelerate the sales cycle by building an internal consensus between internal salespeople and their prospects.

This administrator article explains how to prepare the 3D assets and how you can upload them to the content library. We provided an example file of a 3D asset at the bottom of this article as a reference.

Note: Animated assets within the 3D files are currently not supported. Instead, they are displayed as a still image that can be handled like any other 3D asset.

Key features

• Manage and distribute a new range of interactive sales tools
• Upload 3D assets to show your products in 3D or in AR (iOS)
• Accelerate the sales cycle by immersing prospects in (complex) products
• Add an unlimited number of different product versions to reach consensus

You need this to succeed

• Available on Showpad Plus and Ultimate
• Sales users can use 3D assets on iOS, the Windows Desktop app, and the Web app
• Technical knowledge about creating 3D assets or a dedicated partner
• A zip file with the manifest.json, DAE (Collada) or USDZ file, preview, and textures included

The quick way to awesomeness

1. Prepare the zip file containing the necessary information
2. Upload the zip file to the content library
3. Wait until processing is finished
4. Add the asset to Experiences, just like any regular asset

Do this step by step

Tips on modeling your 3D asset

There are various things to keep in mind when modeling your 3D asset:

• Indicate the length, height, and width of the object. The 3D model needs to reflect the real-world proportion of the products.
• Set the anchor point of the object (where it is supposed to touch the surface) and the object’s coordinates to 0, 0, 0 on the X, Y, Z axis accordingly. If we don’t do this, the object might appear like it’s hovering over the surface as we move the device around.
• Bake the textures. Baking means generating a UVW Map which is an image file that contains the texture of every polygon of an object.
• Keep the file size of the models and textures small to enhance the user experience. Limit the size to 10MB, maximum 20MB, for a smooth experience in a mobile, tablet, or desktop browser.

Preparing the 3D asset

A 3D asset consists of multiple files in one single zip file.

• The manifest.json file is mandatory and indicates where to find the model and the preview image.
• The model in .dae (Collada) or USDZ file format. This is a mandatory file, built in a common 3D file format. USDZ files are only compatible with the iOS app. 
• A preview file in png or jpg format. This file is optional and if added, we recommend using a large enough image in landscape format (1600 * 1200px). If no preview is specified, the file will be represented by a default icon in Showpad.
• The textures for the model in .tga, .jpg, .bmp, and preferably, in .png format. Textures are optional, but we recommend adding them to give your model that extra flair.

Note: The fluency of viewing 3D models depends on how detailed your model is and the device's performance. Make sure to brief the creator of the files clearly on what your goal is. Using AR on iOS is more fluent with simplified models compared to models that contain the tiniest detail.

If we take a look at our manifest.json file in detail, it contains the version number of the model, the type of file, the file name of the model, and the name of the preview image. Make sure you added the correct file names.

It's important to mention that formatting can make or break a .json file. Take care when crafting the file to ensure all commas and capitalizations are correct, as these are the most common errors that can result in issues. 

An example of how your folder can look before creating a .zip file.

The location of the textures is defined in your .dae model file. Textures don't necessarily have to be in a separate textures folder but you need to be sure that the file paths of the textures in the .dae file are limited to the .zip folder. So, if the texture's location is something like file:///volumes/projects/production/3d/brand_ar-textures/your_zip_file/texture1.png the path you have to mention in the .dae file must be texture1.png only.

When you have all the required files, you can zip everything in one file so it can be used for uploading to the content library. There is no set requirement for the size of your 3D assets, but our best practice is not to exceed 50MB. See the Supported file types article for more information. 

Upload the 3D asset to the content library

1. Sign in to Showpad's Online Platform and click Library. Choose a division, if relevant.
2. Select Add in the Assets & Experiences tab.
   
3. Drag and drop, or select the created zip file. Add tags if necessary and click Start Uploading.
   
4. Your file will upload to the content library. The preview image is also visible in the asset properties.
   

Guidelines to make 3D models work

• Make sure you use the correct file extensions in the manifest.json file. We support .dae files (Collada) on the Web app, or USDZ files on iOS. When using other file types, your users and their prospects will see an error message even though the upload in the content library was successful.
  
• To display 3D content on web browsers we use WebGL. It's standard in most modern browsers, but you might want to check for compatibility if you're receiving the following message.