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Good STL/3D model archival software? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've collected quite a number of STL files for 3D printing, and realized I need some better way to catalogue them, because the default Windows explorer is starting to become burdensome. I'm looking for something that:

Shows a 3D preview I can rotate around to see the model
Allows me to sort into folders
Allows tagging with keywords for later searching
Snappy search

Maybe Windows already does this and I'm just not seeing it, but I feel like my collection is at the point where I need something dedicated, similar to a photo cataloguing tool (e.g. Google Photos) or a reference manager (e.g. Zotero/Mendeley).

Any good FOSS tool that does something like this? Or a generic "better file explorer"?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So Nextcloud has a shockingly good 3d model viewer with a long list of supported formats https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/files_3dmodelviewer . Here's a quick demo video I made: https://vimeo.com/865805210?share=copy

Unfortunately Nextcloud is a whole can of worms and not just an application you install on your desktop. But it does to all the things you asked for so, worth mentioning I guess? Tagging, sorting, and search are just features of it's general file management though, they are not really stl specific in any way.

Quick list of supported formats from the github page

3dm 	Rhino 	
3ds 	Autodesk 3D Studio 	
3mf 	3D Manufacturing Format 	
bim 	dotbim 	
brep/brp 	Boundary Representation 	
dae 	Collada 	
fbx 	Filmbox 	
fcstd 	FreeCAD Standard File Format 	
glb 	GL Transmission Format 	binary
gltf 	GL Transmission Format 	separate and embedded
ifc 	International Foundation Class 	no XML or compressed
iges/igs 	Initial Graphics Exchange Specification 	
obj 	Wavefront 	with mtl and textures
off 	Object File Format 	
ply 	Polygon File Format 	
step/stp 	Standard for Exchange of Product Model Data 	
stl 	Stereolithography Standard Tesselation/Triangle Language 	ASCII and Binary
wrl 	Virtual Reality Modeling Language 	superseded by X3D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"Nextcloud is a can of worms" is an understatement. I keep talking myself into and out of trying to install it. I just don't have the time at the moment to troubleshoot it when something inevitably breaks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah that's fair. I've been running it since about 2018 and never found it too difficult, but messing around with Linux is my hobby so I admit that I enjoy the problem solving aspect. It's certainly not something you set and forget.

I suggested it here mostly because this particular plugin is both actively developed and quite good in my opinion but it would only be a viable solution if you already use Nextcloud. I'm in no way suggesting OP should install it just for this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It also runs like crap, even on decent hardware. I don't get why people love it so much....

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Why not try one of the free nextcloud hosting providers? I don't remember if they have support for Nextcloud apps.

https://nextcloud.com/sign-up/