What is this?

This is a 3D model viewer designed to project 3D models in planetariums or dome theaters. By displaying the Dome View (dome master video), which opens in a child window, in full screen and feeding it as an external video input to your planetarium, you can project images across the entire dome screen.

This viewer was created with the goal of allowing anyone to easily run it directly in a browser, without requiring complex configurations or relying on restricted environments. Although it has limitations inherent to the browser environment, it includes a rich set of features necessary for 3D model presentations, such as model editing and animation tools. If you require more advanced capabilities or more stable performance, please consider using digital systems integrated into planetariums or Amateras Model Viewer.

How to Use

We recommend enabling hardware (GPU) acceleration in your browser to ensure high-speed rendering. Performance may degrade or stutter on lower-spec devices, when increasing the resolution, or when loading large files.

Adding Models

• Click the "Add Model" button to select and load 3D models in STL or OBJ formats. Note that external MTL files or texture files referenced by OBJ files will not be loaded. For OBJ files containing multiple objects, only the first object will be loaded. You can select files only one at a time, but additional models can be added later.

Control Modes

• Orbit Mode: Allows you to rotate and pan the camera viewpoint around the model using the mouse.
• Fly Mode: Allows you to freely move and change viewpoints using the keyboard (Q, W, E, R, A, S, D, F, and Arrow keys). Holding the Shift key increases movement speed.
• In either mode, you can center the viewpoint on a specific location by holding Ctrl and clicking.

Environment Editing (Env Edit)

• You can edit settings such as background color, background images, lighting, and output resolution.
• Please provide background images in the equirectangular format. By using an equirectangular image of the starry sky, it can function as a simple digital planetarium.
• The resolution value represents the resolution of the cubemap used during the conversion process. A resolution of 1024 roughly corresponds to a 2K dome master equivalent.

Model Editing (Model Edit)

• Select a 3D model currently on display to individually adjust its position coordinates, rotation, size, color, etc.
• The selected model can be removed using the delete button.

Dome View

• Opens the dome master format viewer in a child window. Displaying this window in full screen on your planetarium's external video input allows you to project images across the entire dome screen.

Tilt Controls (Bottom Left of Control Screen)

• Allows you to tilt the Dome View's camera angle up, down, left, and right. By default, the front direction of the control screen corresponds to the zenith (top center) of the Dome View.
• Adjust the tilt according to the sweet spot of the actual dome you are projecting on.

Camera Coordinates & Attitude

• The camera's coordinates (pos) and orientation/attitude (rot) are displayed in the upper-left corner of the control screen. You can copy these values to your clipboard and use them directly in the commander input.

Terminal

• Plays back animations based on pre-configured commands (cues). Commands are interpreted line by line. Lines starting with "//" or "#" are treated as comments, and empty lines are ignored.
• Play Button: Executes the cues. Model controls are disabled during playback.
• Pause Button: Pauses playback, stopping the screen and displaying a prompt to either resume or stop.
• Stop Button: Halts cue playback mid-way.
• Commands
  • Camera Coordinates: Described in the format "pos: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00". Can be written together with camera attitude by separating them with a semicolon ";".
  • Camera Attitude: Described in the format "rot: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00" (unit: degrees). Can be written together with camera coordinates by separating them with a semicolon ";".
  • Animation Duration: Described in the format "dur: 0.00" or "duration: 0.00" (unit: seconds).
  • Easing: Used in conjunction with animation duration to smoothly change the animation speed. Written in the form "cubic-bezier: 0.00,0.00,0.00,0.00". Generally, values between 0 and 1 are used, but negative values or values greater than 1 can also be entered. You can also use predefined keywords on their own, such as "linear", "ease", "ease-in", "ease-out", or "ease-in-out". Examples including predefined values are shown below:
    • "linear" or "cubic-bezier: 0,0,1,1": Moves linearly, identical to having no easing defined.
    • "ease" or "cubic-bezier: 0.25,0.1,0.25,1": Starts slowly, and ends even more slowly.
    • "ease-in" or "cubic-bezier: 0.42,0,1,1": Starts slowly, then accelerates toward the end.
    • "ease-out" or "cubic-bezier: 0,0,0.58,1": Starts quickly, then decelerates toward the end.
    • "ease-in-out" or "cubic-bezier: 0.42,0,0.58,1": Starts and ends slowly at a similar pace.
    • "cubic-bezier: 0,1,1,-1": Briefly moves backward mid-way.
    • "cubic-bezier: 0.5,0,0.5,1.5": Overshoots the target before returning.
  • Pause: Described in the format "pause:0.00" (unit: seconds). If no time is specified, it triggers an interactive pause.
  • Tilt: Described in the format "tilt: 0.00, 0.00" (both units are in degrees), representing vertical tilt and horizontal tilt respectively. Can be combined with animation duration and easing by separating them with semicolons ";". Example: tilt: 30, 45; dur: 2; ease-in-out;

Hoshizuna: Model Viewer for Dome v1.72 | (c) Tasuku Yoshioka (Toyama Science Museum), 2025 | Released under the MIT license.