F3D is a fast, minimalist 3D viewer designed to open models without the overhead of a full modelling application. It supports a wide range of formats, from ordinary polygon meshes and animated assets to CAD models and scientific datasets.
The application concentrates on displaying and inspecting models rather than editing their geometry. It provides interactive viewing controls and rendering options that can produce anything from a straightforward shaded preview to a more realistic representation of an object’s materials and surfaces.
F3D also includes libf3d, a rendering library that enables other applications to integrate its viewing capabilities. The library offers a C++ interface and bindings for several programming languages, making the project useful to developers as well as people who simply need a model viewer.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Supports numerous 3D formats, including glTF, USD, STL, STEP, PLY, OBJ, FBX and Alembic.
- Can display scientific datasets as well as conventional polygon models.
- Plays animations embedded in supported model formats.
- Physically based rendering produces realistic material appearances.
- Includes advanced rendering options such as ray tracing, lighting and texturing controls.
- Supports scalar colouring and configurable colour maps for visualising scientific data.
- Generate thumbnails of supported 3D files.
- Interactive controls include keyboard shortcuts and drag-and-drop loading.
- Integrates with file managers for convenient model previewing.
- Extensive command-line controls allow viewing settings to be specified without using menus.
- Configuration files provide reusable viewing and rendering preferences.
- libf3d offers a C++ API and bindings for C, Python, Java and JavaScript.
- A browser-based viewer provides another way to inspect supported 3D content.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: github.com/f3d-app/f3d
Support:
Developer: F3D-APP Foundation
License: BSD 3-Clause ‘New’ or ‘Revised’ License
F3D is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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