Viewing SketchFab models in a browser

Check the SketchFab troubleshooting guide if scans don't load fully in your browser.

You might also need to enable WebGL 2.0 features.

Enter chrome://flags/ in your address bar, search for "webgl", and enable the options:

  • Override software rendering list
  • WebGL 2.0 Compute
  • WebGL Draft Extensions

Further suggestions are available at Stack exchange.

If you've done all this, you may still occasionally find that SketchFab doesn't think it's supported. Sometimes this is because the browser is low on resources, in which case closing some background tabs can help. You can also free resources by stopping the 3D viewer when you're done with a model: click the × in the top-right corner. Sometimes I find that just refreshing the page and waiting a short while can cause content to work. (This can be frustrating!)

Opening scans locally

3D virtual rock scans are created from representative hand specimens using a technique known as photogrammetry. You can zoom in and out and rotate the virtual hand specimens.

Each 3D virtual rock scan folder contains 3 files, XXX.jpeg, XXX.obj and XXX.mtl. Download the 3 files to a folder on your computer. There are a number of options for opening them. Which option works for you depends on the operating system and the hardware capabilities of your computer. You may need to try a number of them.

  1. (Windows 10 only:) Find the 'App' '3D Viewer' on your PC or download and install it from Microsoft. Navigate to the folder containing your downloaded 3D rock files.
  2. Open 3dviewer.net in Google Chrome and drag and drop the three files (.mtl, .jpeg and .obj) into the browser window. Wait a few moments.
  3. Go to creators3D.com/online-viewer and drag and drop the three files (.mtl, .jpeg and .obj) into the browser window. Wait a few moments.
  4. Download and install MeshLab. Open the program and navigate to the folder containing your downloaded 3D rock files.
  5. Blender users can open 3D models in Blender.