[HN Gopher] F3D is an open source 3D viewer, fast and minimalist
___________________________________________________________________
F3D is an open source 3D viewer, fast and minimalist
Author : GlowOnDub
Score : 194 points
Date : 2023-10-05 06:48 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (f3d.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (f3d.app)
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Great Project.
|
| In my previous (work) life it would've been incredibly useful to
| have an editor that could open the yearly, not-backward-neither-
| forward-compatible iterations of 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD and Maya
| file formats. Especially when custom renders were involved. I
| still have somewhere a 3DSMax 9/Vray file that could be opened
| correctly only on the very same machine that wrote it.
| matja wrote:
| .max file format is intentionally hostile to developers to
| implement it, forcing them to use the proprietary
| library/environment. In my experience .obj (binary or ASCII) or
| .lwo have the best interoperability.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| We did not focus on legacy proprietary format though, but many
| modern formats are supported.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| It's not working for me; installed f3d 1.3.1 via the package
| manager on Ubuntu 23.04 and when I try to open any of the STL
| files I generated with Inventor or Fusion that I normally open
| with/import into Cura just fine to interact with or print but all
| I see is a blank canvas.
|
| EDIT
|
| Trying it from the command line and I see the problem: a message
| is posted to stderr complaining that the file does not exist,
| probably because this is an smb path and it (f3d) is doing some
| weird thing trying to open the path itself instead of going
| through the default filesystem apis.
|
| Copying the file to the local fs and then opening it with f3d
| works, so as far as I'm concerned, this is at the very least a
| bug in that f3d doesn't forward fatal errors to the UI and only
| posts them to stderr, which is hidden/swallowed by default when
| opening f3d via the desktop environment or by double-clicking on
| the .stl file (as no terminal is shown), if not to also mention a
| bug opening files from smb or network shares or more generally
| through the gvfs extensions.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| W/o looking -- Ubuntu, and installed from the package manager?
| I bet that it's a snap package, and the mount namespace isn't
| allowing access to that smb mount.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| No, it's a regular package and brought in a whole slew of
| dependencies. It doesn't appear in `snap list`. But great
| guess!
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Definitely look like a bug! Could you report it:
| https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/issues ?
|
| Regarding the error, you are correct, we have not implemented a
| log dialog. We plan to improve that in the future but its not a
| small work: https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/issues/29
| spullara wrote:
| Kind of hard to take it seriously when it doesn't support
| .usd/.usdz.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| We are working on it!
| amelius wrote:
| Will there be a WASM port?
| [deleted]
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Yes! We are working on it! Please join the discord if you want
| to contribute to it.
| an_aparallel wrote:
| This is really cool - you'd think by now this is something that
| should come with your OS, just like music and video players do :)
| dagmx wrote:
| macOS supports viewing USD, STL, Alembic, PLY, OBJ for almost a
| decade now (some formats being newer).
|
| Windows as well supports gltf in many areas.
|
| iOS natively supports USDZ for the last 5-ish years.
| jtvjan wrote:
| Windows 10 came with an application to view 3D models in obj
| and other formats, but it's no longer included in Windows 11.
| You have to download it separately now (it's still free).
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Then download and install F3D instead :)
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Windows powertoys can preview and thumbnail STL files.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Yes!
| nraynaud wrote:
| Macs mostly do it, unless it's STEP, nobody can reasonably open
| a STEP file, even scihub doesn't have the specification.
| phkahler wrote:
| The OCCT library can read STEP pretty well, but there's
| nothing small or light about leveraging that ;-)
| [deleted]
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| F3D rely on OCCT to open STEP and IGES file, just try it :)
| phkahler wrote:
| The only other Free Software STEP reader of any
| competence might be the one in gCAD3d. It's written in C.
| But even if you can read STEP there is the problem of
| triangulating trimmed NURBS surfaces. I've been wanting
| to lift that reader and put it in Solvespace for linking
| parts in assembly but it's a big job and we still can't
| support all the types of geometry you might find in STEP.
| DeadMouseFive wrote:
| Windows 11 shows STEP thumbnails now.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| By default ?
| ant6n wrote:
| Operating systems don't even have software (anymore) that
| allows looking through multiple images in a directory.
| dagmx wrote:
| Which operating systems are you talking about? I can do that
| just fine in both windows and macOS without installing
| anything
| smcleod wrote:
| Yeah it's been built into macOS natively for quite some time.
| DeadMouseFive wrote:
| Pretty cool but a killer CPU load.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| You mean the thumbnails ? Well they need to be created.
| V1ndaar wrote:
| It seems really neat! I recently received a .usdz file and was
| hoping this would be able to work with it. Unfortunately, that's
| not the case yet (but there's an issue about it [0]). Compiling
| the entire OpenUSD framework was a bit of a failure here on Void
| Linux.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/issues/780
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Yeah, we wanted to include usd support in this release but it
| proved very challenging. We aim for it in 2.3.
| gregoriol wrote:
| That's something that might be useful to us here too
| mentos wrote:
| How does the performance of F3D compare to say rendering the same
| object in Unreal Engine's static mesh viewer?
|
| Could I use F3D as the rendering engine for a game?
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| > How does the performance of F3D compare to say rendering the
| same object in Unreal Engine's static mesh viewer?
|
| Hard to say since I never used UE static mesh viewer, but if
| you test it I would apreciate a feedback!
|
| > Could I use F3D as the rendering engine for a game?
|
| Not really. F3D rely on VTK for rendering, which is definitely
| not a game rendering engine.
|
| That being said, you can easily render 2D sprite for your games
| by scripting F3D.
| [deleted]
| bArray wrote:
| I like F3D, but it really struggles loading large files and there
| is no feedback to tell you it is loading.
|
| It would also be cool if it offered conversions between formats
| (as it clearly demonstrates the ability to take some file and
| render it, it should be able to reverse that operation in most
| cases too).
|
| I never knew about the bindings, it may be cool to experiment
| with some procedurally generated models, or using some form of
| network model to produce 3D models. I remember from quite some
| time ago that would procedurally generate star ships [1].
|
| [1] https://blendermarket.com/products/procedural-starship-
| space...
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| There should be a progress bar showing on the bottom, if there
| is not, this is a bug and it would be nice of you to report it
| :).
|
| Large file can take some time but should be loaded at some
| point, but indeed, no more feedback but the progress bar.
|
| Conversions are hard because you need not only a reader, but a
| writer too, and they should all be implemented. That being
| said, I think it would be cool to have another project based on
| the libf3d trying to go in this direction. It will not be in
| F3D though.
| spookie wrote:
| Reading is one thing, making the other format use as many
| features as the original where possible, is another. It's
| understandable, but one always has meshlab for that :)
| iFire wrote:
| LICENSE
|
| BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
|
| https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/blob/master/LICENSE.md
|
| (I had trouble finding the git repository.)
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| There is a link top right on our website
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| We've been deploying this for over a year on Fedora/Debian -
| everyone loves it!
|
| The only challenge has been with thumbnails, and it looks like we
| should explore this:
| https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/issues/969#issuecomment-17032...
|
| Because we generate so many assets, our preferred solution would
| be a "3DAM/3DCMS", which there seem to be a few of now. However,
| a 3D file manager where we can open multiple viewers / objects
| from a higher level directory ("open folder as project") would
| help with our open source collaborations :)
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Yes, the egl version should provide thumbnails!
|
| Do not hesitate to reach out on discord or GitHub for help.
| manonthewall wrote:
| brew version seems to be an older version, lots of command line
| options failed to work.
|
| after downloading from the web page: the macos arm download is
| corrupted I think, x86 works fine, currently watching the orc
| "thing" angrily stand in place.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| The brew package probably does not contain all dependencies.
| You will need to ask the brew packager about it.
|
| You could just download the binary we distribute instead:
| https://f3d.app/doc/user/INSTALLATION.html
| manonthewall wrote:
| You should check the arm version. On my macbook m2 air macos
| complains that the file is broken when I try to run it;
| x86_64 version runs fine.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| We will!
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| You need to disable sip, our binary is not signed yet,
| sorry about that.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| F3D 2.2.1 just released! Open source, fast and minimalist 3D
| viewer with full python integration and better HDRI.
|
| Install with `pip install f3d` or download our binary release:
| https://f3d.app/doc/user/INSTALLATION.html
| Aachen wrote:
| FYI, the immediate question I have when reading the headline or
| this comment is: 3d view of ...what?
|
| After clicking: When should I use this, when I'm developing 3d
| printer software and want to preview files or so? Who is this
| for?
| nilamo wrote:
| My gut instinct is game developers or others in the asset
| pipeline, which have hundreds/thousands of obj, fbx, etc
| files laying around, and 3d editors such as Blender are not
| exactly fast to open if you just want a quick preview.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Exactly, F3D also supports generating thumbnails!
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| Well, it's a viewer of 3D files. You have a 3D file, you
| double click on it, it opens, you can look around.
| cdata wrote:
| Shameless plug: if you are interested in viewing and/or embedding
| glTF or USDZ files on the web, I worked on an HTML element for
| that called <model-viewer>
|
| "It's like <img> or <video> tag for 3D models"
|
| https://modelviewer.dev/
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| You are absolved of your sins :)
| jwr wrote:
| I so wish somebody will make it into a MacOS spacebar-triggered-
| quickview-thingy plugin...
| michael-online wrote:
| Your mac can already do this for usd files fyi
| figomore wrote:
| Also for PLY and STL files.
| GlowOnDub wrote:
| TBH this should not be too hard for a macOS developer, since
| there is a C++ and python API to use.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-05 23:02 UTC)