SharePoint Spaces is a recent addition to SharePoint Online, currently on preview. Immersive, mixed reality content supports displaying and investigating also 3D objects. If you are not so familiar with Spaces and interested what it is, check my recent blog post about it: https://mattipaukkonen.com/2020/05/01/first-touches-of-sharepoint-spaces-preview/
When organizations start exploring and investigating possible scenarios for SharePoint Spaces, there might be a requirement for publishing organization’s own 3D objects to be used for all Spaces on the tenant. Using SharePoint organization asset libraries, you can set up a centralized repository for your 3D objects.
Currently supported 3D filetypes are: 3MF, COOL, GLB, GLTF, OBJ, STL (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/file-types-supported-for-previewing-files-in-onedrive-sharepoint-and-teams-e054cd0f-8ef2-4ccb-937e-26e37419c5e4)
Setup an Organization Asset Library for 3D Objects
If you already have an organization asset library for images set up in your tenant, you can start using it. I would still suggest creating a new document library for 3D objects and configuring it as an organization asset image library as well.
1) Create a new document library
If you have organization asset libraries already in use, you need to create new document library to same SharePoint site where other asset libraries are located. You can check the site with SharePoint Online Management Shell command
Get-SPOOrgAssetsLibrary
If libraries are configured, you see the site relative url from results
Location of organization asset libraries /sites/assets
Otherwise, you see that asset libraries are not configured. When you are planning to start using organization asset libraries, check out my blog about some design principles: https://mattipaukkonen.com/2019/09/26/sharepoint-organization-asset-libraries-explained/
Create a new document library to site for hosting assets. Name it for example “Models” or “3D Objects” for clarity.
2) Configure new library as assets library
You can configure a new asset library by running SharePoint Online Management Shell command
Add-SPOOrgAssetLibrary -LibraryUrl http://<your-tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/assets/models -OrgAssetType ImageDocumentLibrary -CdnType <Private|Public> -ThumbnailUrl <url-to-your-thumbnail>
After a short while library will be available to users.
Adding 3D object from organization’s asset library
Adding 3D object to a Space works like adding images from the organization asset library.
- Pick a library from configured libraries. I’m using Models for maintaining 3D objects.
2. Pick a model.
3. Model will be added to the Space.
File View Web Part
SharePoint’s File Viewer web part also supports adding 3D objects from an asset library.
Afterword
Organization asset libraries are really handy for publishing reusable to assets to your users and content authors. You can also publish Office templates to Office desktop applications by using them.
If you want to try out how 3D objects and publishing them with asset libraries works, you can find nice objects from Thingiverse or create your own with Paint 3D for example.
Check out my other blogs related to SharePoint Spaces and organization asset libraries.
Matti Paukkonen 