Adding 3D models to a website can be tricky; <model-viewer> is as easy as writing HTML.
Adding 3D models to a website is tricky. 3D models are ideally shown in a viewer that can work responsively on all browsers including smartphones, desktop, or even new head-mounted displays. The viewer should support progressive enhancement for performance and rendering quality. It should support use cases on all devices ranging from older, lower-powered smartphones to newer devices that support augmented reality. It should stay up to date with current technologies. It should be performant and accessible. However, building such a viewer requires specialty 3D programming skills, and can be a challenge for web developers that want to host their own models instead of using a third-party hosting service.
The <model-viewer>
web component, however,
lets you declaratively add a 3D model
to a web page, while hosting the model on your own site.
The goal of the component is to enable adding 3D models to your
website without understanding the underlying technology and platforms.
The web component supports responsive design,
and use cases like augmented reality on some devices.
It includes features for accessibility, rendering quality, and
interactivity.
What is a web component?
A web component is a custom HTML element built from standard web platform
features. A web component behaves for all intents and purposes like a standard
element. It has a unique tag, it can have properties and methods, and it can
fire and respond to events. In short, you don't need to know anything special to
use any web component, much less <model-viewer>
.
This article covers features that are particular to <model-viewer>
.
If you're interested in learning more about web components,
webcomponents.org is a good place to start.
What can <model-viewer>
do?
The following examples demonstrate some capabilities of <model-viewer>
.
Basic 3D models
Embedding a 3D model is as simple as the following markup. By using glb files, this component will work on any major browser.
<!-- Import the component -->
<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/@google/model-viewer/dist/model-viewer.min.js"></script>
<script nomodule src="https://unpkg.com/@google/model-viewer/dist/model-viewer-legacy.js"></script>
<!-- Use it like any other HTML element -->
<model-viewer
id="mv-shark"
src="shark.glb"
camera-controls
></model-viewer>
That code renders like this:
Add motion and interactivity
The auto-rotate
and camera-controls
attributes provide motion and user
control. Those aren't the only possible attributes. See the documentation for a
complete list of attributes.
<model-viewer src="shark.glb" auto-rotate camera-controls>
Delay loading with poster images
All 3D models take time to load, adding a poster
attribute
means that an image will be shown until the model is ready to use.
A poster image that will look identical to the 3D render
can be generated using the editor.
<model-viewer src="shark.glb" controls auto-rotate
poster="shark.jpg">
Responsive design
The component handles some types of responsive design, scaling for both mobile and desktop. It can also manage multiple instances on a page and uses Intersection Observer to conserve battery power and GPU cycles when a model isn't visible.
Using the editor described previously to create a poster image allows that
single image to match the 3D render, even as the aspect ratio of <model-viewer>
responds to different screen sizes.
More features
Explore the <model-viewer>
documentation
for demos of more advanced features.
These include the ability to add a
ground-projected skybox,
and create
animated textures,
and hotspots.