Sketchfab announce MASSIVE, a real-time browser-based 3D viewer for large datasets

Sketchfab has announced an alpha version of MASSIVE, a new initiative to allow much larger data sets in an embeddable 3D Viewer. To demonstrate the technology, Sketchfab are using a scanned photogrammetry scene that contains approximately 80 million triangles and 40 million vertices.

(Use the lower-right fullscreen button for a closer view. Right click or shift+click to pan the scene.)

As you can see from the demo above, MASSIVE is using a combination of data streaming and automated level of detail mesh processing to make it possible to browse larger data sets than would normally be possible.

OBJ and PLY file formats are currently supported and the Sketchfab claim that theoretically there is no size limit on the data they can display. The current technology uses only vertex colours for texturing but optimized texture support is in the works.

MASSIVE is scheduled launch in 2019, you can read more about the technology and see more examples on Sketchfab’s website.