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Frequently asked questions

What type of account do I get?

There are three types of accounts on p3d.in

Basic

Every user starts with a basic account, it comes with limits in several corners of the service but it is possible to upgrade its storage up to 2.5GB for a small monthly fee.

Plus

The Plus account unlocks the full version of p3d, including 8K texture support and massive upload sizes. You can also pay higher steps to get lots of extra storage.

Do you love p3d.in? Are you ready for some real power? Checkout what Plus can do!

Premium

The Premium account unlocks additional features such as annotations. You may also use your 3D models commercially and embed your 3D models in commercial websites such as e-commerce sites.

How do Basic and PLUS accounts compare?

Have a detailed look at how the three account types compare:

	Basic	Plus	Premium
Price	FREE	$6 / month	$50 / month
Total Storage Space	100MB and up	6GB and up	50GB and Up
Commercial Use	No	No	Yes
Model Size	100MB	200MB	300MB
Annotations	No	No	Yes
Unlisted Models	Limited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Private Models	Limited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Private Sharing	View only	View & edit	View & edit
Texture Resolution	1024px	8192px (8K)	8192px (8K)
Customizable Embed	Limited	Full customization	Full customization
Custom Backgrounds	Limited	Full customization	Full customization
Download Source Files	Only you	Anyone (configurable)	Anyone (configurable)
Download Screenshot	Only you	Anyone (configurable)	Anyone (configurable)
Save viewer defaults	Basic	Advanced	Advanced
Unbranded Embed	No	Yes	Yes

Can I use p3d.in embeds commercially?

The free basic accounts are for personal, non-commercial use, for example for trying out p3d.in before you sign up for a subscription. You can still use embeds, but please note that we may have to suspend your account if you generate tons of traffic :)

For the Plus account, you can use the p3d.in account for professional work as an individual, for example for sharing 3D models with your colleagues and customers. Please do not use embedding of models in commercial products.

For the Premium accounts you can use your 3D models commercially as a company and may embed your 3D models in commercial websites such as e-commerce sites. Please contact us if you expect lots of traffic to be generated from your embeds, in which case we will need to agree on a per view and bandwidth pricing model. You will still find that p3d.in is lower cost than any competitive solution - we are a very lean organization and we have been working hard over the last decade to optimize our servers to be as efficient as possible.

Do I need a subscription to get Plus or Premium?

No, you can pay for a limited time only, and even though we are using PayPal^™ as our payment processor, you do ALSO not need to have a PayPal^™ account. You can simply pay with a credit card and say no to signing up for PayPal^™. If PayPal^™ does not work for you, please tell us via email at support@p3d.in

Types of Payments we support

One time purchase

A single payment will be made to p3d.in for a finite time span. These subscriptions are active for 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year, depending on your choice. You will have to manually review your membership when it expires.

Recurring subscription

Recurring payments will be made automatically to p3d.in at regular time intervals, once a month or once a year. The subscription will stay active as long as you keep paying it. You will have to manually cancel the subscription from this page.

You can upgrade or downgrade your subscription at any time, say, when you need more storage space, from your subscription settings here on p3d.in. Our payment system will adjust to never overcharge.

Flexible upgrades and downgrades for single payment subscriptions will have to be arranged manually by our staff, please contact us at support@p3d.in to help you with this.

Payment Methods

Recurring and Single Payment subscriptions can be purchased any time if you use PayPal^™; just go to the upgrade page and submit the form with your subscription choice.

Single payment subscription can also be paid through PayPal^™[*], with a debit or credit card.

Other payment options

Our powerful fleet of alien courier drones isn't ready yet, we'll have to use snail mail. If you need to pay by check, please contact us at support@p3d.in, and we'll send you the necessary information and invoice to proceed with the payment.

Failed payments

To prevent recurring payments from failing we recommend checking your PayPal^™ account for any outdated or expired cards or bank information you might still be using. A simple way to ensure future payments will succeed is to pre-load your PayPal™ balance with enough money for a few months [**].

How do I upload my models

We support a very common 3D exchange format known as Wavefront .obj that is available for export in most 3D packages. Use your 3D application's exporter to generate an obj file and to load your model into the interactive viewer.

What about textures and materials?

Your .obj exporter might also generate an .mtl file which contains material information like colors and other characteristics. Go ahead and drop that too into the viewer as well as any textures used in your model. p3d.in will do it's best to automatically setup your model. Of course we encourage you to keep tweaking your model in the online material editor until it looks just about perfect!

How much can I upload?

You may upload any number of files with a maximum size of 100 MB each until reaching your current storage limit.

Running low on storage? Upgrade your account!

What are the recommended settings for my .obj files?

One of the reasons why we currently only support the .obj file format is we try to make the model loading process really simple and robust. Lots of corner cases are taken care of "automagically" by p3d.in. Here are the details of what's going on when you upload your mesh file.

Geometry

There's no need to triangulate your models, all polygon types including triangles, quads and n-gons are supported.

Some tools will give you the option to export as NURBS or polygon mesh, in that case choose polygon mesh.

Some tools will give you the option to export edges or lines, in that case disable that option since edges will be ignored by p3d.in.

Vertex Normals

Rendering of smooth shaded surfaces requires vertex normals. If your model comes with its own vertex normals we will happily use them, if not we will generate our own. In this case your model might look slightly different than it does in your 3D application.

UV Map

If you plan to add texture maps make sure your model includes the corresponding UV Map and the exporter is set up to save it.

Aligning and orientation

To make navigation easier p3d.in will automatically "fit" your model to the center of the screen.

Any incorrect model orientation should be easily fixable inside the interactive viewer. However for the sake of clarity, we use the standard Left Handed Coordinate System. Most exporters will default to this configuration.

Size

File size is currently limited to 100 MB per model. This is to prevent browser freezing problems on low end computers and mobile devices.

Sculpted or scanned models can be larger than 100 MB. We recommend reducing the amount of polygons with a decimator. We have prepared a video tutorial about doing just that in the free software Blender.

.MTL files

The .obj file contains all the geometry data but the .mtl file contains information about your object's materials and is used to automate some of the material setup and texture assignment. Your 3D software of choice will often export this file alongside the .obj.

The .mtl keywords supported by p3d.in are:

.MTL Keyword	Type	Description
newmtl	String	Creates a new material with a given name.
Kd	RGB	The diffuse constant color.
map_Kd	Texture map	The texture map for the diffuse channel. Can include transparency.
Ks	RGB	The specular reflection constant color.
map_Ks	Texture map	The specular reflection color texture.
Ns	Float	The specular glossiness value.
map_Ns	Texture map	The specular glossiness grayscale texture.
d	Float	The opacity value.
map_refl or refl	Texture map	The spherical reflection map.
map_Ke	Texture map	The glow or emissive map.
map_ao	Texture map	The ambient occlusion map.
map_normal	Texture map	The tangent space normal map.
map_bump	Texture map	The bump map texture.

What do all those material options mean?

Diffuse is the main color of the material. This can be modulated with a colored texture.

Transparency can be set by using transparency slider in the diffuse color picker. Textured transparency is also supported by using a transparent PNG image (RGBA) in the diffuse material channel.

To improve the rendering of transparent or semi-transparent surfaces you can do a few things:

Separate the transparent surfaces from the solid surfaces in different materials.
Only use transparent PNG images (RGBA) for transparent materials. Some applications default to saving RGBA PNG images regardless of the alpha channel being used or not. It's better if you save the images as RGB PNG or JPG so p3d.in understands this material is solid.
Double sided transparent surfaces can be problematic. If possible disable this setting from the material properties.

Specularity allows you to control the material's highlight color and intensity. This can be modulated with a colored texture.

Glossiness allows you to control the material shininess. This can be modulated with a grayscale texture.

Normal maps are a way to represent surface detail without the need to increase density in geometry. This textures are generated by specialized 3D software. p3d.in uses the somewhat standard tangent space normal map format.

Bump maps are another way to represent surface detail but this time using simple grayscale images where blacks produce dents and whites produce bumps or vice versa. Bump maps are quite fast to render and reusing the same diffuse or specular texture as a bump will work just fine without adding any extra download time.

Ambient occlusion maps are a trick to recreate the shadowing effect around creases and edges in real lighting conditions. This texture can be colored and is multiplied by the diffuse color.

Glow maps are used to define parts of a model that are emissive and are not affected by regular lighting. This texture can be grayscale or colored and can be influenced by the diffuse color.

Spherical Reflection maps are a trick to simulate reflections from the environment over the model by using a simple "mirror ball" texture. Our reflection maps can be further controlled by Fresnel and separate strenght maps.

Detail maps are special tileable textures used to give the material a second layer of small scale detail. The diffuse, normal and bump channels can benefit from detail maps.

ShadeSpheres are one of those very simple techniques that can produce great visual results. You basically take a small image of a sphere representing the shading of a material. When applied to your model it produces a beautiful and fast representation of almost any material you can imagine.

What if my model has multiple materials and textures?

As soon as your model is displayed in the viewer you will be able to assign different materials and textures to each poly group right in the Mesh and Materials sidebar ( ).

Here's a complete demo on how to set up your model, textures and materials:

How can I embed my model in a website?

p3d.in embeds are designed with simplicity in mind and integrate seamlessly with your site. Our embeds are also transparent ensuring a clean fit in your site's color themes or even background pattern.

The code

We have put a lot of effort into making sharing and embedding your models as easy as possible. Open the share code generator ( ), copy & paste the appropriate code and you're on!

For reference here is the complete list of URL options supported in p3d.in:

URL Option	Supported in	Example URL
wireonsmooth Enables wireframe over smooth shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+wireonsmooth
shadeless Enables shadeless shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+shadeless
wireonshadeless Enables wireframe over shadeless shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+wireonshadeless
clean Enables clean shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+clean
wireonclean Enables wireframe over clean shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+wireonclean
xray Enables x-ray shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+xray
wireonxray Enables wireframe over x-ray shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+wireonxray
wire Enables only the wireframe shader.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+wire
subd Subdivides and smooths the model.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+subd
spin Enables spinning of the model.	Site + Embed	p3d.in/9GLHs+spin
e Enables the specialized embed viewer.	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs
load Enables automatic loading of the model.	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+load
trackball Forces camera navigation style to Trackball (free rotation in all axis).	Site + Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+trackball
turntable Forces camera navigation style to Turntable (lock the tilt axis).	Site + Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+turntable
nopan PLUS Disables camera panning in the model.	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+nopan
nozoom PLUS Disables camera zooming in the model.	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+nozoom
norotate PLUS Disables camera rotation in the model.	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+norotate
bg PLUS Defines a custom background color and transparency. If bg-none is used the embed will ignore the main viewer's background settings.	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+bg-69abd2ff
hidden PLUS Hides elements from the embed viewer. Multiple keyworks can be separated by commas. Possible keyworks are: border = embed border shadow link = link to model in p3d.in shading = shading selector subd = subdivision button spin = spinning control dl = download button help = navigation hints button fs = full screen control controls = the entire sidebar	Embed	p3d.in/e/9GLHs+spin-hidden p3d.in/e/9GLHs+subd,spin,fs-hidden p3d.in/e/9GLHs+controls-hidden

How can I add p3d.in support to my forum or site?

A growing number of forums and sites natively support p3d.in and it's very easy to add support for your forum!

Adding embed support to a forum

If you would like your forum to natively support p3d.in please speak with the forum admins about adding the [p3d] BBCode. We propose the following format for consistency:

[p3d]9GLHs[/p3d]

Or with some custom options:

[p3d]9GLHs+wire+spin[/p3d]

We have prepared easy instructions for setting up the [p3d] bbcode in about 5 minutes!

Adding [p3d] on VBulletin forums.
Adding [p3d] on phpBB forums.
Adding [p3d] on IP.Board forums.
Adding [media=p3d] on xenForo forums.

Integration using oEmbed

oEmbed is a simple API that allows a website to display embedded content (such as p3d.in models) when a user posts a link to that resource, without having to parse the resource directly.

You can use the API endpoint to request the embed code for a p3d.in model from its URL. The response format will be JSON.

A few valid examples:

https://p3d.in/oembed?url=https://p3d.in/9GLHs

https://p3d.in/oembed?url=https://p3d.in/9GLHs+spin

https://p3d.in/oembed?url=https://p3d.in/e/9GLHs+xray&width=800&height=600

The following arguments are provided:

Argument	Description	Example
title	The name of the model.	p3d.in logo
description	The model description written by the user.	The p3d.in 3D logo
url	The URL for the model in p3d.in	https://p3d.in/9GLHs
author_name	The name of the model's owner account.	admin
provider_name	p3d.in brand name.	p3d.in
provider_url	p3d.in's URL.	https://p3d.in
thumbnail_url	A persistent thumbnail image of the model.	https://p3d.in/model_data/snapshot/9GLHs
thumbnail_width	The thumbnail's width.	512
thumbnail_height	The thumbnail's height.	512
width	The width of the iframe. Can be set by the URL.	640
height	The height of the iframe. Can be set by the URL.	480
html	The actual iframe object code for embedding.	<iframe src="https://p3d.in/e/9GLHs" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" seamless allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen></iframe>

p3d.in supports discovery of the oEmbed URL. Each page that has a 3D model will have a link tag containing the URL for the JSON oEmbed response.

How can I protect my content?

First it is important to state the fact that we can not protect your content from being illegally extracted from p3d.in once it has been accessed because of mere technical reasons. In other words, if a person can view your content he can potentially extract the data. This is similar to video sites not being able to prevent people from downloading the content to their hard drives. However we do offer a number of tools to help you keep your content in the right hands only:

Encrypted IDs

Every model uploaded to p3d.in gets its own URL for sharing, this URL is in part formed by an unique encrypted ID. This makes it extremely difficult for anyone to guess the correct URL for your model.

Privacy Options

The following privacy options are available:

Public Models
Anyone can see your public model in your user’s gallery, the public gallery and anywhere on the Internet.
Unlisted Models
If your uploaded models are Unlisted, this just means no one else will see them on your user’s page. However your Unlisted models can still be viewed by anyone with the correct URL. Unlisted models can also be linked from other websites.
Private Files
Models set to private can only be seen by you.