3DBI-Connected, an alternative to 3DBI.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use our custom 3DBI-Connected visual for Microsoft® Power BI®—a dynamic alternative to the original 3DBI visual.
We assume you’re already familiar with 3DBI and how to integrate 3D models into that visual. If not, we recommend starting with the following tutorials to gain a solid understanding of the benefits of bringing 3D models into Power BI:
1 – 3DBI-Connected requires model file URLs
The key distinction between 3DBI-Connected and the original 3DBI visual lies in its ability to dynamically assign multiple 3D model URLs.
This feature enables you to load cloud-hosted 3D models on demand, removing the need for manual model insertion as required in the original 3DBI. Since models are loaded dynamically, any updates to the geometry are instantly reflected across all reports, ensuring your visuals stay up-to-date with minimal effort.
In terms of data fields, 3DBI-Connected introduces two additional fields compared to the original visual:
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Model URL – defines the location of the 3D model file
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Model Type – specifies the format of the model file (the extension)
While the “Object Identifiers” field was already required for the original 3DBI visual to function, 3DBI-Connected also requires valid entries for two additional fields: “Model URL” and “Model Type”.
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Model URL:
This should be a column containing a public URL that directly points to a 3D model file. The URL must be accessible without authentication. -
Model Type:
This column defines the expected format of the model at the specified URL.
Supported types (at the time of writing) include:"3dbi","obj","dae","glb", and"svg".
2 – Create a Models table
For Power BI to successfully pass Model URLs and Model Types to the 3DBI-Connected visual, it needs to know which models are available, where they are hosted, and what type each model is.
To provide this context, we recommend creating a dedicated Models table that includes all the required information:
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The model’s unique identifier
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Its publicly accessible URL
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The corresponding model type
Public Model URLs
In order for 3DBI-Connected to download 3D model files via the provided Model URL, the URLs must be publicly accessible. Additionally, the server hosting these files must be configured to allow cross-origin requests from the domain where your Power BI report is hosted.
As of April 2025, 3DBI-Connected does not support:
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URLs that require user authentication (e.g. behind login)
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Servers with restrictive CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) policies
In the sample report and demo data shown above, we’ve hosted our sample .3dbi files on a Google Cloud Storage bucket configured to meet these requirements.
3 – Link individual object information with models
You likely have a table representing individual objects—these could be anything from bin locations in a warehouse to rooms in a hospital or building elements in a construction project, depending on your industry and reporting needs.
To let Power BI understand which objects belong to which 3D model, a connection between the objects and their respective models is required.
While there are several ways to establish this link, in this example we’ve added an extra column to the Objects table, containing the identifier of the model each object belongs to.
With this extra column a relationship can be setup to link both tables together.
4 – Only 1 model wil be loaded
Although Power BI may technically pass multiple model URLs to the 3DBI-Connected visual, only one model will be loaded and displayed at a time. This behavior is determined by how your data is structured and how filters are applied within your report.
To ensure proper visualization, you should ideally filter the data—for example, using a slicer—so that only objects from a single model are passed to the 3DBI-Connected visual at any given time.
