Omi is designed for students, teachers, researchers, and cultural heritage workers to be able to host and share their own 3D digital collections cheaply and easily.
You only need…
- A collection of 3D models
- A spreadsheet with metadata about those models (e.g. title, description, author, date, etc.)
That’s it! You don’t even need a web server. You can host Omi on Gitpages for free. Though, you can self host it on your own server if you prefer. Once you upload the models and spreadsheet, you only need to edit a few configuration files and your site is ready to go!
Core Features
- A searchable and filterable interface for your collections with dynamically created thumbnails
- Attractive and interactive 3D viewer with customizable controls
- Support for multiple object formates (gltf, glb, obj/mtl, and stl)
- Customizeable theme colors & font
- A static site. Once built, Omi will be stable and fast, and not require regular updates or maintenance.
- Embeddable, generate a embeddable iframe to show off your models on other sites
- Markdown support for user created content pages
Use Cases
Omi is designed for anyone who wants to share their 3D models and collections with the world. It is particularly useful for…
- Students
- Teachers
- Researchers
- Cultural Heritage Workers
- Artists
- Hobbyists
- Anyone
Inspiration & Technology
Omi was directly inspired by the CollectionBuilder project, which is a static site generator for general collections of 2D objects. While CollectionBuilder does support .gltf files, the experience is not centered on 3D models and their needs.
Although inspired by CollectionBuilder, Omi is built using Angular, a powerful framework for building applications which enables a more interactive experience. Omi uses Three.js to render 3D scenes, and Tailwind and Angular Material for the UI.
Other than uploading models, Omi is designed to be configured only by editing .CSV files and .JSON files. This means that you can use any text editor, or Github’s built in editor to modify the site, and you don’t need to know HTML, CSS, or JavaScript to make changes. You can also use any spreadsheet program (e.g. Excel, Google Sheets) to edit the .CSV files.
Development Plan
Currently, Omi is a work in progress. We have a rough working prototype, but hope to both refine it and expand the functionality. Before we fully release, we are seeking community input on what features are most important to users. Then, once all features have been added, we will streamline every step of the application to make its modification and customization more easy for non-technical users.