How AI Is Automating 3D Workflows: Smarter Content, Less Manual Work

As industries adopt 3D content at scale—from digital twins and AR training to eCommerce and configurators—many are running into a familiar bottleneck: 3D content management is still far too manual.

That’s exactly what Eugene Yi, co-founder of Loci, is solving. In a recent episode of Connected in 3D, Eugene joined to explore how AI is transforming 3D workflows through metadata generation, searchability, and automated structuring.

At VNTANA, we see this challenge constantly. Many of our clients have thousands of 3D models—but without proper metadata and organization, they’re hard to search, share, or scale. The result? Wasted time and siloed content.

Here’s how AI is changing that—and how VNTANA enables seamless integration of AI tools like Loci to create intelligent, automated 3D systems.

The Metadata Problem: 3D Files Without Context

Traditional 3D workflows rely heavily on designers or engineers to manually tag and label models—if they get labeled at all.

This leads to:

• Difficult search and retrieval
• Lost time hunting for the right version
• Inconsistent naming conventions
• Inaccessible content for non-technical teams

As Eugene said, “Metadata is the bridge between your 3D content and everyone who needs to use it.”

That bridge is now being automated with AI.

AI-Powered Metadata: How It Works

Loci uses computer vision and machine learning to automatically generate metadata for 3D models, including:

• Part type (bolt, pipe, gear, etc.)
• Position and hierarchy
• Bounding box dimensions
• Similarity comparisons
• Associated parts or assemblies
• Real-world object detection

The resulting metadata can be embedded into glTF, USD, and other common formats—making the models ready for use across engines like Unity, Unreal, and VNTANA’s web-based 3D viewer.

This enables teams to scale their 3D libraries without drowning in manual cleanup.

VNTANA’s Cloud Infrastructure: Built to Plug in AI

What makes this automation even more powerful is how easily it integrates into existing workflows.

VNTANA’s flexible cloud infrastructure is designed with interoperability in mind—so customers can easily plug in AI tools like Loci to enhance 3D asset metadata, structure, and searchability.

Whether you’re enriching files with Loci, syncing to a PIM or PLM system, or pushing assets into Unreal or Omniverse, our platform acts as a central layer that connects all the dots—without forcing a rip-and-replace of existing tools.

This flexibility ensures enterprise teams can build smarter, AI-powered 3D workflows that scale across departments and platforms.

How VNTANA Uses AI to Automate 3D Workflows

We’ve embedded similar automation throughout the VNTANA platform to reduce friction and accelerate productivity—especially for CAD-heavy organizations.

With Intelligent Optimization™, we:

• Convert large CAD files into lightweight, shareable 3D formats (GLB, USD, USDZ)
• Preserve hierarchy and meshes for configurators or exploded views
• Automatically apply structured metadata
• Centralize access through a role-based, searchable asset management system

Now anyone—whether in sales, marketing, engineering, or training—can find, use, and share the same 3D asset in real time.

Real-World Results: From Hours to Minutes

One VNTANA client was spending 2–3 weeks per product manually prepping CAD files for AR. After switching to our platform:

• Files were auto-optimized in <24 hours
• Metadata was automatically applied
• Assets were published to web and AR with a single click

The impact? Weeks saved per model and faster speed-to-market for their entire 3D initiative.

Final Takeaway: AI Turns 3D into a Scalable Enterprise Asset