First 3D steps in SharePoint Spaces!

I am very happy to have been able to build my first 3D spaces in SharePoint. Here are my first findings in 5 short paragraphs.

1. What is it and prerequisites
2. Creating your SharePoint space
3. Adding 2D Webparts in the space
4. Adding 3D Webparts in the space
5. Adding a Document Library or a file

I created a second post to describe My first 3D project on how to create a 3D landing page for a corporate event with SharePoint spaces

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1. What is it and prerequisites

_{SharePoint spaces is a web-based, immersive platform, which lets you create and share, secure and extensible mixed reality experiences. Add a new dimension to your intranet by using 2- and 3D web parts to create your mixed reality vision.}

You can find documentation on Support.Office.com here.

The feature is still rolling out on the roadmap so you might still wait a little bit to test it in our tenant:

To use the feature, you must first activate it Site level. Go to Settings / Site Information/ View All site settings / Manage site features to activate the Spaces (preview) feature:

2. Creating your SharePoint space

Once enabled, you can create a space exactly as the same level as where you can create a page. So SharePoint spaces are not webparts!

You then have to choose a name (mandatory) and a description (optional):

You can as well here change the default structure which is the default 3D place where your artefacts will stand:

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You can from here define the overall design of the space with many options.

Background image is interesting as it allows to use a flat image and curve it automatically to make it the virtual walls of the space, like that:

Flat image:

Automatically curved image in the space:

view to the top

view to the bottom

Another very interesting option is the capability to add a sound file as a welcome message and an ambient sound as well.

From here your space feel really empty so you need to populate it with some web parts. There is a plus sign on the upper left side of your space, clicking on it you have access to a palette of 9 webparts:

You have basically 2D objects like :

• Text
• Image
• People
• Video

which are displayed as a flat screen floating in the 3D space. You have many options there to precisely position your artefact in the 3D space. But on a 2D screen it’s not always easy to position these artefacts at the correct place. You should think that the default space is like a round table above which you put your things.

Selecting each object you can modify parameters by clicking on the pencil

Each object have an Actions parameter pan where we can set default actions for when you click on the 3D object and others actions that will show up:

you have 4 types of actions possible:

So here for my text object here, I can define the following action in the parameter pane:

On trigger means the default action on left click and “More actions” will be proposed on right click. And it displays like that in the 3D space:

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4. Adding 3D Webparts in the space

And then you have 3D webparts.

5. Adding a Document Library or a file

And you have the document library object that can be used to display a combination of 3D objects, 36° images, 360° videos, documents and 2D videos. It is currently not supported showing 2D images in a document library.

By clicking on a file you make it bigger and have the option to open it

The funny part is that using the wheel of the mouse you can make the files rotate smoothly.

6. My first 3D use case: creating a 3D landing page for a corporate event

My first 3D use case was driven by a customer need. I had to create a 3D landing page for a corporate event. I described it on this second post:

Creating a 3D landing page for a corporate event with SharePoint spaces