3D for the humanities · IIIF-native

Read a 3D model the way you read a source.

ExPlora4D is a web viewer for cultural heritage in 3D. Inspect the surface, annotate what you see, say how certain each part of a reconstruction is, and publish it all as an open IIIF manifest.

Open the viewer Manifest schema

25+ 3D formats
IIIF Presentation 4
EN · PL · DE
Web, Drupal, Android, iOS

The wooden synagogue of Wołpa as a textured 3D model

The same model in untextured clay with ambient occlusion

The same model coloured by height with contour lines

The same model showing its surface normals as colours

The same model coloured by level of certainty, with lettered badges

Wołpa synagogue · reconstruction

The model as it was published: photographic textures, scene lights and environment.shadingMode: "original"

Four things a researcher does with a 3D model

Each tool stores its state in the manifest, under the key shown beneath it. What you set up on screen is what the next reader opens.

Inspect

See the surface, not the texture.

Scan viewsOriginal materials, clay, matcap, flat faces, normals, Phong, Lambert, toon, or your own GLSL.modelTransform.shadingMode
Raking lightA grazing light that follows the view, for inscriptions and tool marks. Turn it by hand or let it sweep.AIM3DViewer.rakingLight
Ambient occlusionCrevices and corners darken so relief reads at a glance.postprocessing.ao
Sections and measurementClipping planes on three axes; distance, angle, area, bounding box, surface and volume in real units.AIM3DViewer.clipping

Interpret

Say something about a part of the object.

Annotations on facesClick a face, add faces, or drag a rectangle over the visible ones; hidden and cut-away faces are skipped.W3C Web Annotation
Level of CertaintyGrade each element of a reconstruction from surveyed fact to hypothesis, and colour the model by it.AIM3DViewer.certainty
Guided toursAnnotations become steps with saved camera views, played in order or on their own.viewer.tour
HierarchyBrowse the model's parts by name and select whole groups.

Publish

Hand the view on, intact.

IIIF manifestsExport and import IIIF Presentation 4 with the AIM3D block: camera, lights, rendering, annotations.IIIF Scene + AIM3DViewer
Embed anywhereAn embed configurator writes the snippet; presentation mode hides the editor.viewer.presentationMode
Repository integrationA Drupal module for WissKI-based repositories, with metadata shown beside the model.
Screenshots and thumbnailsCapture the view, or render gallery thumbnails from nine angles.

Ingest

Bring in what the project already has.

Conversion pipelineUploads are unpacked and converted to glTF: Blender for meshes, IfcConvert for BIM, OpenCASCADE for CAD.
Compressiongltfpack, Draco, Meshopt and KTX2 textures; a light preview appears first, then the full model.
Point cloudsLAS and LAZ load directly; E57 and large scans become streamed 3D Tiles with Eye-Dome Lighting.
ArchivesZIP, RAR and tar archives with their textures and material files.

How sure are we about this roof?

A reconstruction mixes what survives with what is inferred. ExPlora4D lets every annotation carry a certainty grade, colours the model by it, and keeps the scale in the manifest so others can read it the same way.

Level	Code	Basis	Score
✓	A	Preserved / surveyed	10
■	B	Direct documentation	8–9
▲	C	Indirect sources	6–7
≈	D	Analogy	4–5
?	E	Hypothesis	0–3

Each level has a colour, a letter and a symbol, so the scale reads without colour vision and in black-and-white print.

A grade applies to one object or to its whole group. The legend counts assessed objects per level; click a level to show only those parts.

Projects can define their own scale, labels and colours in the manifest; the default above is used otherwise.

The synagogue reconstruction coloured by level of certainty — Badges replace annotation numbers with the level's code and symbol while the certainty view is on.

Built on open standards

Nothing about a model or its interpretation is locked inside the viewer. The data stays in formats other tools already read.

Standard	Maintained by	Used for
IIIF Presentation API 4	IIIF Consortium	Scenes, models, cameras, lights, transforms and comments; import and export of whole manifests.
Web Annotation	W3C	Comments and assessments on faces and regions, with `commenting` and `assessing` motivations, point and WKT selectors.
glTF 2.0	Khronos Group	The delivery format, with Draco and Meshopt geometry compression, KTX2/Basis textures and unlit materials.
3D Tiles	OGC	Streaming large meshes and point clouds at the level of detail the view needs.
IFC	buildingSMART	Building models, read in the browser or converted with their property sets kept as metadata.
LAS / LAZ, E57	ASPRS · ASTM	Laser-scan point clouds, loaded directly or converted to 3D Tiles.
JSON Schema 2020-12	JSON Schema	The AIM3D manifest block, published and validated on import.
WissKI	WissKI community	Drupal-based, CIDOC CRM–aware repositories that host the models and their metadata.

The manifest is the view

A IIIF manifest with the viewer's state on board

Standard IIIF carries the scene. The AIM3DViewer block carries what a researcher set up on top of it. Viewers that don't know the block still show the model; ExPlora4D restores the whole reading.

Export from the toolbar after setting up the view.
Validate against the published schema; the viewer checks it on import too.
Share the file or its URL. Opening it restores camera, lights, shading and annotations.

// wolpa-synagogue-aim3d-local-raking-light.json (excerpt)
{
  "type": "Manifest",
  "items": [ { "type": "Scene", … } ],
  "AIM3DViewer": {
    "viewer": {
      "rendering": {
        "toneMapping": "agx",
        "postprocessing": { "enabled": true, "ao": false }
      }
    },
    "rakingLight": {
      "enabled": true,
      "direction": 150,
      "height": 10,
      "sweep": true
    },
    "certainty": { "levels": [ … ] },
    "modelTransform": { "shadingMode": "clay" }
  }
}

Technology

A WebGL viewer in the browser, a conversion worker on the server, and the same code packaged for repositories and phones.

In the browser

three.js r186
WebGL 2
GTAO
3d-tiles-renderer
loaders.gl
laz-perf
web-ifc
Draco
Meshopt
KTX2 / Basis

Logarithmic depth for city-scale and coin-scale models alike; a post-processing chain with SMAA, FXAA and seven tone mappings.

On the server

Python worker
Blender + Cycles
IfcOpenShell
OpenCASCADE
trimesh
py3dtiles
gltfpack
PHP
Docker

One docker compose up runs the viewer and the full conversion pipeline, with accounts and upload limits.

Delivery and quality

Rollup
Drupal module
Capacitor
Android
iOS
Playwright
GlitchTip
i18n EN · PL · DE

End-to-end tests in a real WebGL browser cover loading, editing, export and the manifest schema.

Opened directly

glTF / GLB
OBJ
FBX
DAE
PLY
STL
IFC
USD / USDZ
3MF
3DS
AMF
WRL
KMZ
VOX
XYZ
PCD
LAS / LAZ
3D Tiles
Potree 2

Converted on upload

BLEND
ABC
X3D
GML
STEP / STP
IGES / IGS
E57

The directly opened formats are optimised the same way: compressed GLB, with thumbnails rendered from nine angles.

Where it runs

The same viewer, configured by one settings file or by the manifest itself.

In a repository

A Drupal module for WissKI: models on entity pages, conversion on upload, annotations saved back.

On your server

Docker images for the viewer and worker, with profiles for test, development and drag-and-drop sandbox.

In any page

An embed snippet with presentation mode, autorotation and a chosen camera. Settings follow the manifest.

embed.html?…

On a phone

Android and iOS builds of the same viewer, for fieldwork and teaching.

Open the Wołpa synagogue and try every reading

The example collection includes the scan views, raking light, contour lines and the certainty view, each as a manifest you can download and change.

Open the viewer Read the schema