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Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)

  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. Introducing the new Acrobat experience
    3. What's new in Acrobat
    4. Keyboard shortcuts
    5. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. PDFs converted to web pages
    12. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    13. PDF articles
    14. Geospatial PDFs
    15. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    16. Change the default font for adding text
    17. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to PPTX
    4. Convert PDF to XLSX or XML
    5. Convert PDF to JPG
    6. Convert PDF to PNG
    7. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    8. File format options for PDF export
    9. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
    7. Cloud-based auto-tagging
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

Learn how to add 3D model to PDF file in Acrobat Pro

Before you begin

We're rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, select help for your current experience.

In the new experience, the tools appear on the left side of the screen.

You can use the 3D tool of Acrobat to add a 3D model (in U3D 3rd Edition or PRC format) to a PDF file. Acrobat can create 3D PDFs from U3D ECMA 1 files.

Add a 3D model to a PDF file

  1. Select All tools from the upper left of the screen.

  2. Go to Add rich media > 3D media.

  3. Drag a rectangle on the screen to define the canvas area for the 3D model. An Insert 3D dialog box appears.

  4. In the Insert 3D dialog box, use the Browse option to select the 3D file.

     In the Insert 3D dialog box, check the Show Advanced Options to set the initial 3D Properties for the file.

  5. Select OK.

After you place a 3D file, you can adjust the area or canvas in which the 3D model appears, edit the presentation properties for the 3D toolbar and content, and create additional views.

Move, delete, or resize the 3D canvas

  1. Select Customize option from the Quick action toolbar.

    The Customize quick action toolbar appears.

  2. Go to Rich media > Select Object tool , and then select Add to Toolbar option.

  3. Select Save.

    The Select Object tool appears at the bottom of the Quick action toolbar.

    Note:

    Be careful not to confuse the Select Object tool with the basic Select tool. Use the Select Object tool to adjust a 3D canvas.

  4. Now, select the Select Object tool.

  5. Select the 3D model. and change it as needed:

    • To move the canvas, drag it to a new location on the page.

    • To delete the canvas (and the 3D model), select it, and then press Delete on the keyboard.

    • To resize the canvas, drag the frame corners. The 3D content stays proportional within the adjusted frame.

Edit properties of a 3D model

You can check the Properties of the 3D model.

Select the Object Tool to double-click within an activated model.

It opens the properties dialog box to edit the selected 3D model.

Launch Settings tab

Activation Settings

Enable When

Specifies when the 3D model is activated. When the 3D model is enabled, you can interact with it by using the 3D navigation tools, for example.

Disable When

Determines how the 3D model can be deactivated. When a 3D model is disabled, the 2D preview image or poster appears in the canvas.

Playback Style

Enables you to display the 3D model in a floating window outside the page. If you select Play Content In Floating Window, you can select the size of the window (in pixels) from the Height and Width menus.

Appearance

Border Width

Select to create a border around the 3D object.

Transparent Background

Removes any background color.

Poster Image

To replace the default view of the 3D model when it isn’t activated, select a poster image option. Select the Browse to find the image you want.

3D tab

The options on the 3D tab determine how the 3D model is presented. Unlike the settings on the Launch Settings tab, 3D settings don't affect the imported file itself.

The options on the 3D tab are the same as the options on the 3D toolbar except for the following:

Default Display Settings

Lighting Scheme

This setting determines the lighting theme of the animation display in Acrobat.

Rendering Style

Allows you to choose the visualization style for the added 3D model.

Animation Style

For models created with animation, this setting determines how the animation runs in Acrobat.

Navigation

Add Default Views

Allows you to use different model views. An orthographic projection (ortho) effectively removes a dimension, preserving the size ratio between objects but giving the 3D model a less realistic appearance. Orthographic projection is especially useful for viewing certain diagrams, such as 3D mathematical functions plotted on a graph. A perspective projection offers a more realistic scene in which objects in the distance appear smaller than objects of the same size in the foreground.

Retain views, comments, and scripts

Retains the views, comments, and scripts added to the 3D model.

Show toolbar

Displays the 3D toolbar along with the image. When this option is not selected, you can right-click on the 3D model to view the 3D toolbar.

Open model tree

Displays the model tree on the Model Tree pane. The Model Tree has three panes. Each pane displays a specific type of information or control.

Script

Specifies the JavaScript file that runs if a 3D model is enabled. Select the Browse option to add a JavaScript file to the PDF.

Run a JavaScript

If a separate JavaScript file is associated with the 3D model PDF, you can activate it.

  1. Open the PDF file in Acrobat.

  2. Select the 3D model with the Hand tool to enable it.

  3. Right-click on the 3D model, and then select Run A JavaScript.

  4. Find the JavaScript file you want to add, and then select Open.

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