How much does it cost?
Nothing.
Our service is absolutelly free!
Forever and ever!
How does it work?
Well, the ability to render 3D in browsers appeared quite recently with development of WebGL standard. So we
use it to render 3D models you upload.
However, not all browsers or devices are capable of displaying 3D content. To deal with this, we’ve added
support for Spin images - pre-rendered set of images that are generated automatically on our servers after your
model is uploaded and displayed to you when you move your mouse left and right.
Unfortunately Spin images don’t provide an ability to rotate an object freely, zoom in or out, but they at least give
you the ability to see the object from all sides.
What browsers are supported?
We run on all browsers supporting Javascript. For the WebGL rendering, though, only those that support the
standard would qualify. They are:
• Firefox - version 4 or higher
• Chrome - version 10 or higher
• Chromium - all recent versions
• Opera - version 12.0 and higher
• Safari - version 5.1 and higher (WebGL support is turned off by default so you need to turn it on as described
here)
• Internet Explorer doesn’t officially support WebGL but one can use
chromeframe plugin to add it
What are the Graphics Card requirements?
It is recommended that you update drivers for your graphics card to the latest version:
What? 3D models? I can’t see any of them here!
Please ensure that:
What types of licenses do you support?
While publishing a 3D model you can choose between any of the Creative Commons licenses. You can learn more about all Creative Commons licenses on the official site here. And you can choose the license that suits your needs with this little tool.
What privacy settings for 3D models are available?
Your model can be private so only you can see it or public, which means that everybody will see the 3d model on viewshape.com site. More privacy options will be added soon.
What platforms do you support?
All desktop platforms supporting at least one of the mentioned above are supported. We also have a client for iPhone and we plan to release a version for iPad soon.
And of course, we will be working on including support for the Android platform as soon as possible.
Will you have a client for iPad?
Absolutely yes.
So how do I upload a model to viewshape?
First of all you need to get registered. Do it
here.
Done? Well now go to
your profile and press “Upload” or just press here :)
If you want to upload a 3d model with texture you have to pack everything needed (model, material, texture) into a single zip archive and upload it.
You can see requirements
here.
What 3D model formats are supported?
For now we support the following standard formats (with some restrictions):
• OBJ or Wavefront OBJ
• only triangular meshes are supported,
• no support for materials and vertex colors
• STL
• no colors support
• no materials support
• VRML
• some subset of the VRML 2.0 with the support for textures.
What about textures?
Yes, we support textures.To see textured object in WebGL ensure that
• Texture is a quadratic
• And the dimensions are powers of 2 (like 128, 256, 512, 1024).
We do not recommend using textures more than 512x512 as not all graphic cards may handle them properly. You can see requirements
here.
We do not support multiple texture files so try to pack all your textures into a single file.
Currently we support PNG, JPEG and BMP image formats but in the future we plan to extend this set.
Read about how to uploading texture
here.
Will you support other 3D model formats?
Yes, we are constantly working on that and will support more formats soon.
I’ve uploaded my 3D model but can’t see it
When the model is uploaded it is sent to one of our servers and put into a queue for processing. This process
might take some time depending on the number of concurrent uploads and the availability of our server.
Once the model is converted you will get notified by email so you can log in, review your model and publish it.
What 3D software can be used to upload models to viewshape.com?
You can use the fabulous Artec Studio 8.1 and above to upload 3D content to the site or do it from your browser.
Requirements
The model should suit the following requirements:
1) if model is without texture, then its size should be 500 000 polygons or less
2) for models with texture please reduce size of every texture to 512x512. The model itself should be 300 000 polygons or less.
