# Instance (.i3dm) support

**URL:** <https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180>\
**Category:** Cesium for Unreal\
**Created:** [February 4, 2022, 2:31pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180 "2022-02-04T14:31:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Greg2021](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/greg2021/32/3476_2.png) [@Greg2021](https://community.cesium.com/u/Greg2021)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 2:31pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180/1 "2022-02-04T14:31:57Z")

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Hi,

i have seen that loading instance (.i3dm) is on your roadmap for Unreal.  
It would be very usefull for foliage such as trees exported from realistic data (and not generated from raster as you propose in one of your tutorial).

Do you know when it will be available ? (some weeks, months or years)  
It is a priority ?  
Do you have some difficulties ?  
Do you think it is possible in near futur ?

Regards,

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**Author:** ![Nithin\_Pranesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@Nithin\_Pranesh](https://community.cesium.com/u/Nithin_Pranesh)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 5:39pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180/2 "2022-02-07T17:39:17Z")

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Hello @Greg2021 ,

We prototyped something related a while ago in [this Cesium Unreal PR](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium-unreal/pull/560).

For instancing, we seem to be leaning towards EXT\_mesh\_gpu\_instancing (a glTF extension) instead of i3dm. In [this Cesium Native PR](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium-native/pull/290), I attempted to transcode i3dms into glTFs with the EXT\_mesh\_gpu\_instancing extension. That transcode did not seem to be possible under the strict EXT\_mesh\_gpu\_instancing spec, but I may need to revisit that PR to confirm.

I would expect that we add support for EXT\_mesh\_gpu\_instancing before i3dm support, since i3dm is an older format. For any further datasets using instancing you plan on generating, I would recommend using EXT\_mesh\_gpu\_instancing ([specification here](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF/tree/main/extensions/2.0/Vendor/EXT_mesh_gpu_instancing)).

-Nithin Pranesh

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**Author:** ![Greg2021](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/greg2021/32/3476_2.png) [@Greg2021](https://community.cesium.com/u/Greg2021)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 9:53am UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180/3 "2022-02-08T09:53:16Z")

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Hello,

if i understand, it was just a test ?  
Do you plan to support it soon ?

Grégory

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**Author:** ![mycleaerlife](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/mycleaerlife/32/5772_2.png) [@mycleaerlife](https://community.cesium.com/u/mycleaerlife)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 2:34pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180/4 "2022-04-06T14:34:16Z")

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Hi,

Is it possible to load data in .i3dm format now  
Is there any test data in my Assets

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**Author:** ![janine](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/cesium/user_avatar/community.cesium.com/janine/32/5135_2.png) [@janine](https://community.cesium.com/u/janine)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2024, 5:36pm UTC](https://community.cesium.com/t/instance-i3dm-support/17180/5 "2024-06-04T17:36:28Z")

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Update for any future visitors: support for `EXT_mesh_gpu_instancing` and I3DM is now available in [Cesium for Unreal v2.6.0](https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium-unreal/releases/tag/v2.6.0). Feel free to try it out and let us know how it goes!