# Transform assets

> How to use the Unity Asset Manager to transform your assets' size, format, and quality.

The Unity Asset Manager enables you to transform your assets using built-in pipelines.

## Built-in pipelines

The following table describes the different types of built-in pipelines available in Asset Manager:

| **Pipeline name**                | **Description**                                                                                               | **Eligible tier**    | **[Input type](/asset-manager/supported-file-types.md)** |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| Preview generation for 3D assets | Generate thumbnails and a 3D preview of your asset.                                                           | All                  | 3D Model                                                 |
| Metadata Extraction              | Extract scene metadata from 3D models.                                                                        | All                  | 3D Model                                                 |
| 3D Data Streaming                | Prepare and optimize the 3D model for high fidelity visualization on any platform using the 3DDS SDK.         | Enterprise, Industry | 3D Model                                                 |
| Optimize and Convert             | Optimize and Convert your 3D assets using customizable parameters for strategy, polygon targets, and outputs. | All                  | 3D Model                                                 |

## Pipeline triggers

Our built-in pipelines are easy to trigger through the API or the Unity Asset Manager web interface. You can trigger a pipeline from contextual menus at the file and dataset levels while editing your asset.

Built-in pipelines are also triggered automatically in certain cases. For example, any 3D asset upload containing a single 3D file will automatically trigger 3D preview generation, thumbnail generation, and metadata extraction processes.

**Dataset level triggering:** When a pipeline is triggered at a dataset level, the Unity Asset Manager loads all supported 3D files into a single scene and processes them as a whole. This is useful if your asset is split into multiple files, like  BIM use-cases, and you want to process them as one asset.

**Assembly Models:** For assembly models (industrial) or assets with unembedded dependencies, you need to trigger your pipeline on your main assembly file. The Unity Asset Manager will read and pull all dependencies from the same dataset.

> **Warning:**
>
> Currently, the Unity Editor's dependencies are not supported by built-in pipelines.

> **Note:**
>
> All data generated by pipelines counts toward your storage allocation.

## Pipeline progress

You can monitor the progress of every pipeline through our process tray. If a transformation process fails, you have the option to re-run it.

## Next steps

[Optimize and Convert](/asset-manager/optimize-and-convert.md): 
[Preview generation for 3D models](/asset-manager/preview-generation-3d-model.md): 
[Metadata Extraction from 3D assets](/asset-manager/metadata-extraction.md):