Geometries from External Resources
Explore how to load geometries and meshes from external 3D file formats into Three.js. Understand the most supported formats like glTF, OBJ, and JSON, and learn their common use cases and limitations to integrate complex models into your 3D scenes.
We'll cover the following...
Loading geometries from external resources
Three.js can read a large number of 3D file formats and import geometries and meshes defined in those files. A note here is that not all the features of these formats are always supported. So, sometimes, there might be an issue with the textures, or materials might not be set up correctly. The new de facto standard for exchanging models and textures is glTF, so if we want to load externally created models, exporting those models to glTF format will usually give us the best results in Three.js.
In this lesson, we’ll dive a bit deeper into some of the formats that are supported by Three.js, but we won’t show all the loaders. The following list shows an overview of the formats supported by Three.js:
AMF: It is another 3D printing standard, but isn’t under active development anymore. The AMF file format for 3D printing page provides additional information.
3DM: It is the format used by Rhinoceros, which is a tool to create 3D models. More information can be found on Rhinoceros home page.
3MF: It is one of the standards used in 3D printing. Information about this format can be found on the 3MF Consortium home page.
COLLAborative Design Activity (COLLADA): COLLADA is a format for defining digital assets in an XML-based ...