Microsoft Copilot 3D – A Glorious Leap for Ikea, a Tragic Fallout for Furry Friends
Hello everyone. Let’s talk about Microsoft’s shiny new gimmick – sorry, “innovation” – called Copilot 3D. The sales pitch? It’s a magical AI that turns your flat, boring 2D images into glorious, tangible 3D models. Perfect for designers, animators, VR/AR developers, or anyone who’s dying to see what bananas would look like in the Z-axis. And yes, that apparently needed to be invented in 2025 because god forbid you simply take a photo of the object from the side like a plebeian.
The Good – Ikea Armchairs Have Never Looked Sexier
This thing loves furniture. Toss it your clean, well-lit JPG of a minimalist Ikea chair and, in seconds, you get a neat little 3D model that you can spin, poke, and drop into AR like you’re redecorating your Animal Crossing town. Beach balls, umbrellas, even a banana – all rendered with a level of competence that says “we’ve trained on thousands of catalogues” but absolutely not “we’ve done anything useful for your emotional well-being.” In furniture land, Copilot 3D is a god-tier skin in the customization meta.
Of course, use the wrong lighting or an image without depth and the thing starts to freak out like a Skyrim NPC stuck in a door. But when you do feed it exactly what it wants – pristine backgrounds, clear subject separation, and none of the unpredictability of reality – it shines.
The Bad – My Dog Now Has a Back-Mounted Anatomical Upgrade
Animals, however, are apparently the Loch Ness Monster of Copilot 3D – much theorized about, erratically documented, and consistently misinterpreted. One test subject, an innocent dog, became the proud owner of a “third leg” mounted on its back. Somewhere in the machine learning layer, it decided that canine anatomy was an improv class. If I were a vet, I’d call that a medical emergency; as a gamer, I’d call it a terrifying boss phase.
Humans fare no better. My advice? If you want a 3D render of your own face, be prepared for the result to haunt you like an AI-generated creepypasta. The model’s guardrails will valiantly stop you from making 3D Tim Cooks or Taylor Swifts – Microsoft’s way of saying “no celebrity hologram nightclubs for you” – yet somehow Mario still squeaks through, albeit looking like he crawled out of a cursed Unity asset folder.
The Technical Stuff – Because Someone Will Ask
- Input Requirements: JPG or PNG, under 10MB.
- Storage: Files stay in your “creations” for 28 days – which is cute until you realize you forgot to download them.
- Export Format: GLB, compatible with design tools, game engines, 3D printing workflow.
- Advanced: Convert GLB into SLT if Blender or other 3D tools are your poison of choice.
No Copilot Pro subscription needed – it’s free for all Copilot users globally. Translation: they’re dangling the shiny object so everyone beta-tests it for them before they inevitably stick it behind a paywall once you’re hooked.
Sneaky Guardrails and Corporate Fear
Microsoft isn’t letting you loose in the digital sandbox entirely. Upload anything it considers illegal, copyrighted, or privacy-violating and your account might be suspended. That’s nice, except it still lets you attempt to model certain IPs – as long as the results are so hilariously bad that no lawyer could argue they’re derivative works. It’s like an anti-piracy filter that just encourages bad art.
Final Diagnosis
Copilot 3D is the AI equivalent of a brilliant med student – razor sharp when diagnosing flat, predictable Ikea chairs, utterly incompetent when presented with anything messy or alive. It’s a tech demo masquerading as a finished product, and while its potential is undeniable, right now it’s playing on easy mode with pre-vetted, tutorial-level assets. Bring it into the real world, and you can watch the rendering engine cry in the corner.
Verdict? Good for inanimate objects, edge-of-disaster for pets and people. As long as you know its limitations, it’s an amusing tool-slash-toy for designers. Just… don’t expect it to understand dogs. Or dignity.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Source: Microsoft’s new Copilot 3D feature is great for Ikea, bad for my dog, https://www.theverge.com/hands-on/756587/microsoft-copilot-3d-feature-hands-on
