Facebook Brings 3D Photos To Android, Stories, And The Web

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This week, Facebook 360 announced that it’s bringing the ability to create and share 3D photos to Android devices, Facebook Stories, and the web.

When Facebook launched 3D photos last fall, only users with certain iPhone models (those with dual cameras) could create and post them on the platform. Now, Facebook is making it easier for anyone to do so in three new ways.

As of this week, users can share 3D photos through Facebook Stories where they can be viewed, reacted to, and responded to. Just like any Stories, they can only be visible for 24 hours. To post 3D photos to Facebook Stories, simply upload them through the News Feed as you would do with any 3D photos and choose the option to share on News Feed or in a Story.

Facebook is bringing 3D photos to desktop, Stories… and Android!

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Also, it’s becoming a lot easier for users to create and share self-made 3D photo scenes, without the need to hack together various files in third-party apps. All you have to do is upload (drag into the composer window) a depth map together with an image, and Facebook will automatically join them together to create a 3D photo. As Facebook explains in the post announcing the new features,

“You’ll need two (2) files for this to work: an image and a depth map, either in .png or .jpg format… Make sure the depth map has _depth appended to the file name. For example, myImage.png + myImage_depth.png would be what your two files might be named to use this flow.”

Depth maps can be hand-drawn or simply created by a program like Adobe Photoshop. This method can be used for the posting of custom artwork that you’d like to add a 3D effect.

The final feature and the one that many non-iPhone users will be particularly pleased about is the ability to create and share 3D photos on Android. The feature will begin rolling out next month, starting with Samsung Galaxy devices with dual cameras or Portrait mode. Facebook also explains that supported models will include: Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, and Galaxy Fold.

Awesome!