gITF Viewer, GLB Viewer and glTF Viewer from Kisters

gLTF or giTF - that is the question here

Are you really looking for a giTF viewer? Unfortunately, we cannot offer that. We and others, including Wikipedia, have never even heard of giTF as a data format. But maybe you have just made a mistake and you are really looking for a gLTF viewer. The spelling with a small lower case "L" in combination with capital "TF" can easily lead to confusion with the capital "i" "in combination with capital" TF ". The abbreviation “glTF” (GLTF) stands for Graphics Language Transmission Format. glTF is initially a 3D data format and many. A glTF file can contain all information but also references to external files such as textures. The binary version of the format is called GLB, which stores all assets in a single file. With GLTF and GLB an attempt is made to enable fast processing with the smallest possible file size. It is developed and maintained by the Khronos Group and supports, among other things, 3D geometries, assembly structures and animations. Developers speak more of a scene graph, which can provide a 3D model object with texture and animation. Since glTF is an open standard, there are many programs that offer an export or import for this file format. Unity, known for virtual reality, is one of them.

The 3DViewStation is your glTF viewer

The Kisters 3DViewStation is not only your glTF viewer or GLB viewer, but also your multi CAD viewer for viewing files that are available as 3D or 2D data. Most users install the 3DViewStation Desktop version on a local desktop PC or notebook. Since glTF data can be provided with textures, it is very suitable for VR applications. Here the 3DViewStation VR-Edition scores with its rich functionality. Alternatively, the 3DViewStation WebViewer version can be installed on a server. This way you have a glTF online viewer available very quickly. No installation is then required on the end device and even when you travel you do not need to take your data with you. Your data is also safe if you should make it available to your business partners online for viewing. All the end user needs is a modern browser - no downloads in advance for the appropriate JAVA runtime plus JAVA 3D plus JAVA applet, but also no browser plug-ins that have to be downloaded and installed first. We call this zero admin, zero install - the easiest and fastest way to share glTF files. And finally, thanks to the high-level APIs of the 3DViewStation WebViewer, a solution in the style of a Web 2.0 application can be put together very quickly in the project.

3DViewstaton is a universal viewer with a focus on 3D

Many customers are specifically looking for a pure glTF viewer. However, Kisters offers much more, namely Universal Viewer, which can process many native and neutral file formats. There are now a total of over 60 data formats, including many native 3D CAD formats such as Catia, Siemens NX, Creo, Solidworks, SolidEdge and standard and exchange formats such as STEP, STP, IFC (BIM) and JT, but also 2D CAD data such as drawings, but also other 2D formats such as Office and Image formats.

Use textures - but how?

Or "How does it work to get them used?" How one could ask new German. Textures can create very nice optical effects. In contrast to materials, an image file is placed on the surfaces of a 3D model as a texture. There are some simple strategies, namely to lay the image file flat, cylindrical or spherical on the faces of the geometry. However, this leads to distortions on irregular surfaces. In addition, we often want to see clean cuts in adjacent surfaces, just like in real life. As an example, let's take a seat that consists of a back section, two side sections and the lower seat section with two side sections. Just as fabric patterns don't continue over seams there, and the way you have and see seams there, we want to see it digitally too. And since all of these sections are irregularly curved, we want the texture to match the surface contour as well.

Not trivial: apply texture

There are different approaches to applying the textures:
Most of the CAD data we find today does not contain any information that could help us with texturing. In addition, making things beautiful is often delegated to service providers. These then use tools such as 3DStudio Max, into which the CAD data must first be imported. The textures are applied with a lot of interactive effort and then usually saved in the proprietary data format of the application, but increasingly also in glTF or GLB. In any case, the way back to the native CAD format is blocked. As soon as the CAD data has changed - and CAD geometries are constantly changed - our problem with this approach becomes clear: After every change, the texturing has to be carried out again - time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, there is an increasing rethinking and thus a change in processes.

UV coordinates in native CAD data

The most important information to be able to texturise cleanly are so-called UV coordinates, which have to be applied to all sub-areas of a CAD geometry. Nowadays this is possible with all CAD systems. So the designer has another task, namely to ensure that his CAD models contain these UV coordinates. From now on, it is sufficient to save the native CAD data in a prepared form, i.e. preferably including UV coordinates and texture reference, and you can already display the models with our 3DViewStation, for example. And after every change to the CAD data, they always appear automatically and correctly textured, without any interactive intervention.

Are free glTF viewers or GLB viewers not enough?

You can find some hits on free GlTF viewers on the Internet. As a rule, however, these are online viewers where you have to upload your data. So you hand over your data and no longer have any control over it. The functionality of this online viewer is very limited, which may be enough for some users, but not for many. The 3DViewStation, on the other hand, also offers the familiar range of functions for glTF with over 180 functionalities, from measuring, dimensioning, cutting, comparing to markups, annotations, clash & clearance, undercut analyzes and much more.

Test your glTF Viewer now for free!

Why wait Talk to us today and let us explain the advantages of our 3DViewStation to you over the phone. Or we can meet virtually via a web meeting or we would be happy to meet in person at your premises. You can also find us at user conferences and trade fairs in Germany, Europe, the USA and Asia. You are welcome to download a test version of the 3DViewStation Desktop or VR Edition for your PC. Then you can try out the Kisters 3DviewStation with your own glTF files. But you can also test the 3DViewStation WebViewer version with your files - conveniently at any time and online. You only need to register once and can then work with public examples as well as upload and view your own glTF, glb or other 3D and 2D files.

Many years of viewer experience

We started with technical viewers for TIFF, CALS, JPEG many years ago as a reseller - from the beginning with a focus on the manufacturing industry. Support for 2D CAD was added very quickly with DWG, DXF, DWF and PDF. Then the time of the 3D CAD systems began. Today Catia, Siemens NX (formerly UGS) and Creo (formerly Pro / Engineer) dominate the high-end area, but SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Inventor and Co are probably even more widespread. We started our in-house development over 10 years ago and since then we have been developing very closely to your needs, the customer requirements. The decision to develop the graphics core itself also quickly turned out to be completely correct. Otherwise we would never have become so flexible and fast.

Not just glTF, GLB and gITF

The world is heterogeneous and not homogeneous. Even if most CAD systems today can generate glTF. Which is why we have to be able to load data from various systems together in one scene without preparation. The complexity of the assemblies is also increasing, so that we often have to deal with millions of components. No problem for the 3DViewStation. In order to keep loading times short, we recommend converting to our own 3DVS data format beforehand. For example, we achieve loading times of just a few seconds for a cruise ship with 10 million components. And we can still show these extremely short charging times when we have to charge this ship with our smartphone via the mobile data service in the USA or elsewhere in the world. This is simply world class.

glTF Viewer integrated

If you plan to visualize your glTF data integrated in leading systems, e.g. as part of PLM systems, then you've come to the right place. Usually you use our API (programming interface) there, which then allows a wide variety of solutions. This includes not only standard viewing, DMU (digital mockup) and advanced analyzes within PLM systems, but also as integrated viewing in spare parts catalogs and product configurators. Other companies use the Kisters 3DViewStation with the TechDoc option as an authoring system for creating maintenance and servicing instructions, starting with your glTF files.