---
title: 3D content
framework: Technology Overviews
role: article
path: technologyoverviews/3d-content
---

# 3D content

Create 3D content and incorporate it into your app’s interface.

## Build 3D objects for your scene

Build content in three dimensions when you want to create more realistic experiences. A game might use 3D content to immerse the player in a fabricated world that mimics the real one. A shopping app might let people view 3D versions of products from any angle, or use augmented reality to show how those products look in a person’s home. On most Apple platforms, you build models in three dimensions and display them in a two-dimensional view. You can use industry-standard tools or Apple technologies to create your 3D models, but you use Apple-provided views to display those models in your app. In visionOS, apps can display content in 2D views, and also have access to Adding 3D content to your app that present your models stereoscopically, making them appear three dimensional to the viewer.

Build 3D objects for your scene Start your exploration of 3D with content-creation apps, such as Reality Composer Pro, which comes with the Xcode app. Use Reality Composer Pro to build spatial content from existing 3D models and simple shapes you add. Augment your scenes with additional content, such as particle effects, lighting, audio, and animation behaviors. Preview your content and optimize it for your app, and then export it to a package you can load directly into your app at runtime.

Reality Composer Pro also includes the ShaderGraph editor, which you use to create the custom materials you apply to your 3D models. Similar to textures, materials give your shapes their appearance. For example, you might create a material that imparts a metal appearance onto a shape. The editor’s node-based construction approach lets you create materials that use dynamic logic and stylized effects to produce the final results. This support for dynamic content gives you the ability to change the appearance of your content based on properties and values you control.

Apple technologies support many file formats for 3D content, but USD (USD) is the preferred format. USD is an efficient, scalable, and extensible system that assembles multiple meshes, textures, assets, and data into a single file to create virtual sets, scenes, shots, and worlds that you can load and render. Many apps export their content in the USD format, and you can also import the USD files you create using other apps directly into Reality Composer Pro. Display 3D content in your interface Use RealityKit for managing and displaying 3D content in your app. RealityKit uses an Understanding the modular architecture of RealityKit architecture to separate your 3D models from the behaviors and code you use to present and animate them in your app. The result is a high-performance 3D simulation and rendering system that displays your content and animates changes for you. Build content for RealityKit programmatically or use Reality Composer or Reality Composer Pro to create scenes in advance. Present those scenes from your from a SwiftUI, UIKit, or AppKit interface using a special RealityView that manages the RealityKit simulation.  When building apps for visionOS, you can also display your RealityKit content directly in a Adding 3D content to your app. To animate your content, make changes to the components that govern the behavior of that content and let RealityKit apply those changes to the simulation. For example, use RealityKit to apply physical forces to your 3D models and animate their movement in your scene. If you’re generating 3D content dynamically or need maximum performance, use Build a graphics engine using Metal to achieve 3D scenes with realistic lighting, textures, and even special effects like smoke, lens flares, motion blurs, and more. Metal gives you direct access to the GPU, putting you in control of what you render and when you render it. Build your own GPU devices and work submission and use the tightly integrated Render passes and Compute passes APIs to build your content frame by frame. Incorporate machine learning, Ray tracing with acceleration structures, and many other features into your code to create incredible experiences. Use the suite of Metal debugger tools to debug and profile your Metal code. Place 3D content in the person’s environment If you’re building an augmented reality app in iOS or iPadOS, the ARKit offers a privacy-friendly way to integrate your 3D content into a person’s environment. After you add an ARView to your interface, use its Managing Session Life Cycle and Tracking Quality object to start the cameras and display the results in the view. The session’s Configuration Objects determines what information it collects from the person’s environment. For example, a session might generate anchors for planar surfaces it discovers in the environment. When you attach your custom content to the session-provided anchors, the session displays your content in the view and updates its position in response to device movements. To collect information about a person’s environment in a privacy friendly way, use the RoomPlan framework. RoomPlan is for apps that need to create a model of someone’s room to perform other tasks. For example, an interior decorating app might use this framework to collect room measurements and the position of furniture, appliances, doors, windows, and other room features. The framework delivers a 3D mesh to your app that you can use to recreate the room virtually.