F3D

F3D is a desktop 3D viewer supporting formats such as glTF, USD, STL, STEP, PLY, OBJ, FBX, and Alembic. It provides realistic rendering, GPU-accelerated animations, CAD viewing, gaussian splatting, and volume rendering. Control is done via command line and configuration files, with thumbnail generation, hotkeys, drag-and-drop, and file manager integration.

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• Realistic rendering. Renders 3D models with realistic lighting and materials, applying shadows, reflections, and physically based rendering (PBR). This function improves visual perception of textures, metals, and plastics on loaded objects.
• Animations and GPU skinning. Plays animations stored in files like glTF or FBX, using hardware acceleration for skinning complex characters. Maintains smooth playback even with dense meshes or articulated rigs.
• CAD visualization. Opens engineering files such as STEP, IGES, and STL, displaying precise surfaces, edges, and solid structures. Allows inspection of mechanical designs, architectural plans, or products without modifying original data.
• Gaussian splatting. Loads and visualizes gaussian splatting scenes, a technique for representing point clouds with smooth gradients. Optimizes rendering of real-world scanned environments while preserving volumetric density.
• Advanced volume rendering. Processes volumetric datasets such as CT scans, MRI scans, or scientific simulations. Applies opacity and color transfer functions to show internal structures in three dimensions.
• Scientific visualization with data coloring. Assigns colors to meshes and points based on scalar values (temperature, pressure, density). Facilitates analysis of simulation results or measurements on complex geometries.
• Thumbnail generation. Integrates with file managers (Nautilus, Dolphin, Finder) to automatically create thumbnails for supported 3D formats. Shows a preview of the model without opening the main application.
• Full command line control. Runs F3D with specific arguments to load files, define cameras, change materials, or activate raytracing. Automates views and generates images from scripts or data pipelines.
• Configuration files. Stores recurring options (resolution, background, post-processing effects) in configuration files. Applies the same settings across multiple sessions or machines without rewriting commands.
• Real-time raytracing. Enables ray tracing for global illumination, accurate reflections, and soft shadows. Requires compatible hardware and improves visual quality of scenes with multiple light sources and complex materials.
• Drag and drop support. Loads any 3D file by dragging it from the file explorer into the F3D window. Switches between models without additional commands.
• Interactive keyboard shortcuts. During visualization, keys allow rotation, panning, zooming, camera reset, render mode switching, or raytracing toggling. The 'h' key displays the complete list of available commands on screen.
• Scientific and medical format compatibility. Reads DICOM (DCM), VTK, XML-VTK, GML, PTS, and WRL files. Applies direct visualization techniques for simulation data or medical volumetric images.

Development of F3D began in 2019. The program was created by Michael Migliore and Mathieu Westphal, developers with backgrounds in scientific visualization and computer graphics. Later contributions came from Joachim Pouderoux and other collaborators from the VTK ecosystem. The primary programming language is C++, using the VTK (Visualization Toolkit) libraries for the graphics core and OpenGL for accelerated rendering. The project is maintained under a BSD license, and its evolution has included support for raytracing, gaussian splatting, and volume rendering, establishing itself as a dedicated GUI-less alternative for technical inspection of 3D models.

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