Adobe Acquires 3D, VR Creation Tool ‘Medium’ from Facebook-Owned Oculus

Facebook’s virtual reality arm Oculus has this week announced that it has sold its 3D sculpting/VR model-building tool ‘Medium‘ to Adobe, which could be an important first step towards the next stage of broader, professional usage of VR.

Medium, which Oculus first launched back in 2016, enables users to build their own 3D models in a VR environment, where you can sculpt, paint and simulate action, essentially creating art and objects in a totally immersive space.

The applications for such extend beyond VR environments, with the capacity to export your models, or even 3D print them, which could provide a whole new approach within Adobe’s expanding creative suite.

As explained by Oculus:

“This is an important milestone for the entire VR community as it demonstrates VR’s maturation and value in the realms of productivity and non-gaming use cases. We look forward to Medium’s continued evolution in the years to come as Adobe works to advance the field of 3D modeling.”

The announcement is particularly interesting given Facebook’s broader ambitions within the VR space – if Facebook wants to maintain control over such, why would it want to sell an element of its current VR toolset to Adobe?

But as noted by Oculus, Adobe’s shift into VR could mark a significant step in the broadening of the technology, expanding VR tools into new use cases where they could, potentially, see more widespread adoption, as the medium moves towards becoming a more mainstream, functional space.

As noted in our recent 2020 trend predictions, VR is set to become a more significant consideration next year, and changes like this could accelerate its momentum, broadening the use cases for the tech, and boosting adoption. We’re still a way off VR becoming an essential space, but gradual changes like these are worth noting as we move towards that next stage of the technology’s evolution.