Commons talk:3D models

Does somebody know if / how / which 3D models include information on sizes? I think this is key data that would make these files much more useful. It would be similar to Scale (map).

On a related note: for 3D models of skeletons, I think it would be nice if there were efforts to use the 3D skeletons to convert them into restored animals, e.g. how dinosaurs may have / are thought to have looked like using the skeleton data. Honestly, I think not so many people are interested in how the anatomical bone structure of organisms looked like but many are interested in how the animal looked like with the skeleton mainly being of interest due to being somewhat a proxy for that. The same goes for 3D scans of ruins from ancient times etc. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:00, 7 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

When scanning an object, a w:fiducial marker can be placed in the scene to establish a size reference. STL uses units, but these are internal and not tied to a particular scale; w:slicer (3D printing) software packages usually allow the user to specify the scale prior to conversion of the model into w:G-code (machine path instructions, which require physical units, usually on the scale of a tenth-millimetre). Arlo James Barnes 22:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for explaining. Maybe it would be good to make it possible to set something in metadata that somehow sets how large STL units are in terms of scaling. I have not seen such markers in STL files so far. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:02, 7 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

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  smallest simplex, but not a minimal STL file; pretty close tho
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  tetrahedron file in Bless, comment area selected

The first 80 bytes can be used for comments: see external diagram and Bless screenshot. PRONOM doesn't mention this, but it is 'in the wild'. Arlo James Barnes 02:32, 8 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Good to know. I meant metadata on WMC, ideally it would also be within the file but I meant SDC and/or info somewhere in {{Information}} or some additional similar 3dmodel-template. Maybe this info could also be used by the WMC 3D model viewer to make it possible to see info on the scale within the 3D view, e.g. via a toggle button "show scale". Prototyperspective (talk) 12:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ah, okay; perhaps scale (P1752) qualified by determination method or standard (P459) or based on heuristic (P887) could help with the structured data statements (see also size comparison diagram (P8512)). An {{InFi}}-type field could help automatically populate a subcategory of category:images with objects to indicate scale in those cases where such objects are present in the file itself. Arlo James Barnes 22:07, 8 November 2024 (UTC)Reply