Updated February 29th, 2024
With the largest 3D content library available and an ever growing community of users, Sketchfab is an extremely powerful tool for finding 3D models for your project. All of the models in Sketchfab’s library can be downloaded in the glTF format, a new 3D model transmission format that standardizes how 3D content is delivered.
Because Vizard and SightLab support the glTF/glb model format, you can utilize the entire Sketchfab library of models, with 150,000+ free models, licensed under Creative Commons. Here is a quick description of how you can bring Sketchfab models into your scene.
First, go to the Sketchfab website. If you don’t have an account, you’ll have to create one.
Filter your search results for “downloadable”. Most of the models on Sketchfab are free, but a few of them are paid.
On the download window, choose either “.glTF” or .glb and Sketchfab will download the file (if you choose .glTF it will be a zip file that needs to be extracted)
At this point you can bring the glTF model directly into Vizard or SigthtLab, although It’s a good idea to check the size and origin point of your model (as well as setup things like lighting and check render stats) in Inspector, a free tool that comes with a download of Vizard. A shortcut to Inspector is also added in the SightLab root folder.
Open the .glTF file in Inspector by right clicking and choosing “Open with”--> Inspector, which is normally under C:\Program Files\UserName\Vizard6\bin\Inspector.exe).
You may need to change the size and starting point for your model. See Step 2 in this tutorial on how that is done
When you are finished you can go to File-Save and the model will be saved in Vizard/SightLab’s default .osgb format and is ready to add to your scene.
Adding an asset in SightLab
To add this asset to SightLab, simply place the model in the utils/resources/environment folder if it is an environment, or the utils/resources/objects folder if you wish to add it as an object to other environments
Adding your model in Vizard:
Make sure to save the model into a folder where you also save your Vizard script.
Open Vizard and create a new script by selecting File > New Vizard File and copy the following lines into it: Use .osgb if you’ve saved it out of Inspector, otherwise you’ll use the extension “.gltf” (i.e. vizfx.addChild(‘modelName.gltf’).
import viz
import vizfx
viz.go()
model = vizfx.addChild('modelName.osgb')
For more information on setting up your model in SightLab see this tutorial.
For more information on setting up your model in a Vizard scene, see this tutorial.
