The Tech Behind 3D Photos on Facebook

Facebook recently rolled out their new feature called 3D Photos. Are you curious about the tech and the algorithms behind the feature? Let’s check out a post by a Medium user akella.

For users it’s quite simple: use portrait mode on iPhone and them post the photo to Facebook. How does it work? The enthusiast from Medium states that when new iPhone is taking a picture in portrait mode, the device also stores depth data along with usual .jpg. Check out a little video explanation on how gathering the data below:

It is worth noting that this data comes as a point cloud, not a mesh. Then, Facebook creates an actual 3D model out of it with a photo as a texture using some interpolation algorithm.

When a user loads a facebook page, it opens a scene and loads the created model with a texture.

Camera position is changing as you move your mouse, so you experience this 2.5D effect, which is actually a true 3D model as it turns out. Make sure to read the original article with more details here.