@google/model-viewer

What is @google/model-viewer?

@google/model-viewer is a web component that allows you to easily display and interact with 3D models on the web. It supports various features such as AR (Augmented Reality) viewing, lighting controls, and animation.

What are @google/model-viewer's main functionalities?

Basic 3D Model Display

This feature allows you to display a 3D model with basic controls such as auto-rotation and camera controls.

<model-viewer src="path/to/your/model.glb" alt="A 3D model" auto-rotate camera-controls></model-viewer>

Augmented Reality (AR) Support

This feature enables AR support, allowing users to view the 3D model in augmented reality using various AR modes.

<model-viewer src="path/to/your/model.glb" alt="A 3D model" ar ar-modes="webxr scene-viewer quick-look" camera-controls></model-viewer>

Lighting and Environment

This feature allows you to add realistic lighting and environment settings to your 3D model, enhancing its visual appearance.

<model-viewer src="path/to/your/model.glb" alt="A 3D model" environment-image="path/to/your/environment.hdr" exposure="1" shadow-intensity="1" camera-controls></model-viewer>

Animations

This feature supports animations within the 3D model, allowing you to play specific animations automatically.

<model-viewer src="path/to/your/model.glb" alt="A 3D model" animation-name="Run" autoplay camera-controls></model-viewer>

Other packages similar to @google/model-viewer

three

Three.js is a popular JavaScript library for creating 3D graphics in the browser. It offers more flexibility and control over 3D rendering compared to @google/model-viewer but requires more setup and coding.

aframe

A-Frame is a web framework for building virtual reality (VR) experiences. It is more focused on VR and immersive experiences compared to @google/model-viewer, which is more geared towards easy 3D model viewing and AR.

babylonjs

Babylon.js is a powerful, open-source 3D engine that allows you to create complex 3D scenes and games. It offers more advanced features and capabilities compared to @google/model-viewer but also comes with a steeper learning curve.

README

<model-viewer>

<model-viewer> is a web component that makes rendering interactive 3D models - optionally in AR - easy to do, on as many browsers and devices as possible. <model-viewer> strives to give you great defaults for rendering quality and performance.

As new standards and APIs become available <model-viewer> will be improved to take advantage of them. If possible, fallbacks and polyfills will be supported to provide a seamless development experience.

Demo • Documentation • Quality Comparisons (courtesy of Khronos)

Installing

The <model-viewer> web component can be installed from NPM:

# install peer dependency ThreeJS
npm install three 
# install package
npm install @google/model-viewer

It can also be used directly from various free CDNs such as jsDelivr and Google's own hosted libraries:

<script type="module" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/model-viewer/3.5.0/model-viewer.min.js"></script>

For more detailed usage documentation and live examples, please visit our docs at modelviewer.dev!

Important note about versions

Our goal for <model-viewer> is to be a consistent, stable part of your web platform while continuing to deliver cutting-edge features. We’ll always try to minimize breaking changes, and to keep the component backwards compatible. See our guide to contributing for more information on backwards compatibility.

For your production site you may want the extra stability that comes by pinning to a specific version, and upgrading on your own schedule (after testing).

If you’ve installed via NPM, you’re all set - you’ll only upgrade when you run npm update. Note that three.js is a peer dependency, so that must also be installed, but can be shared with other bundled code. Note that <model-viewer> requires the version of three.js we test on to maintain quality, due to frequent upstream breaking changes. We strongly recommend you keep your three.js version locked to <model-viewer>'s. If you must use a different version, npm will give you an error which you can work around using their --legacy-peer-deps option, which will allow you to go outside of our version range. Please do not file issues if you use this option.

Browser Support

<model-viewer> is supported on the last 2 major versions of all evergreen desktop and mobile browsers.

	Chrome	Firefox	Safari	Edge
Desktop	✅	✅	✅	✅
Mobile	✅	✅	✅	✅

<model-viewer> builds upon standard web platform APIs so that the performance, capabilities and compatibility of the library get better as the web evolves.

Development

To get started, follow the instructions in the main README.md file.

The following commands are available when developing <model-viewer>:

Command	Description
npm run build	Builds all <model-viewer> distributable files
npm run build:dev	Builds a subset of distributable files (faster than npm run build)
npm run test	Run <model-viewer> unit tests
npm run clean	Deletes all build artifacts
npm run dev	Starts tsc and rollup in "watch" mode, causing artifacts to automatically rebuild upon incremental changes