ModelCraft - the ultimate 3D viewer (V4)

A native, lightweight, instant viewer for SolidWorks (.SLDPRT / .SLDASM), STEP, IGES, IFC, Revit (.rvt / .rfa), FBX, glTF/GLB, COLLADA, 3MF, PLY, STL, OBJ, VRML/X3D, USD, 3DS, 3DXML and eDrawings, written in Rust (wgpu + egui). One .exe (or the ModelCraft-Setup-0.4.0.exe installer), no licence, fully offline. Neither SolidWorks, eDrawings nor Revit needs to be installed.

Screenshots

All screenshots use public sample files only (credits below), in the English interface.

SolidWorks assembly (.SLDASM)	SolidWorks part with measurements (.SLDPRT)
STEP assembly (.STEP, OpenCascade)	IFC building (.ifc, web-ifc)
glTF scene (.glb)	Revit project, 3D view (.rvt)
Revit title sheet (embedded renderings)	Revit plans sheet (views as edges, hidden lines removed)
Revit structural project, 3D view	Home page

Sample files (not stored in this repository):

• SolidWorks and STEP: Mini Bento Arm by BLINC Lab, CC BY-SA 4.0.
• IFC: AC20-FZK-Haus sample house, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) IFC examples.
• glTF: ToyCar from the Khronos glTF sample assets, CC0 (Guido Odendahl, Eric Chadwick).
• Revit: Autodesk's public sample projects rac_basic_sample_project (2021) and rst_basic_sample_project (2023).

The interface follows the ArtCraft suite style (layout taken from PdfCraft, MIT/Apache - see NOTICE.md). ModelCraft is an independent project, not affiliated with ArtCraft, Dassault Systèmes or Autodesk.

ModelCraft depends on neither SolidWorks nor eDrawings: it reads the display mesh stored in SolidWorks files directly, and uses OpenCascade for STEP/IGES. No eDrawings, SolidWorks or Revit code was used.

Formats

Format	Extensions	Support	Notes
SolidWorks	.sldprt .sldasm	✅ full	stored display mesh, assembly tree, colours; thumbnail when there is no mesh
STEP	.step .stp	✅ full	via OpenCascade 7.8: surface meshing, assembly tree, colours
IGES	.iges .igs	✅ full	via OpenCascade
IFC (BIM)	.ifc .ifczip	✅ full	IFC2x3 / IFC4 / IFC4x3 via web-ifc: levels → elements, colours, transparency (exports from Revit, ArchiCAD, Tekla…)
Autodesk Revit	.rvt .rfa .rte .rft	✅ most elements	elements rebuilt from their stored parameters (Revit 2018 to 2026), project browser, sheets and views drawn from the file; see Known limits
STL	.stl	✅	binary and ASCII (units: mm)
OBJ	.obj (+ .mtl)	✅	groups/objects → components, Kd colours, map_Kd textures (UV), vn normals, concave n-gons
3DS	.3ds	✅	objects and materials (diffuse colour)
3DXML	.3dxml	✅	tessellated representations, assemblies
FBX	.fbx	✅	binary and ASCII via assimp: tree, colours, file up axis (no animation)
glTF 2.0	.gltf .glb	✅	nodes, transforms, PBR colours
COLLADA	.dae	✅	file units and up axis
3MF / AMF	.3mf .amf	✅	objects and colours (mm)
PLY / OFF	.ply .off	✅	ASCII and binary (mm); point clouds only → clear message
VRML 97 / X3D	.wrl .vrml .wrz .x3dv .x3d	✅	built-in VRML reader (DEF/USE, primitives, colours); X3D XML via assimp
eDrawings	.easm .eprt	✅	native HOOPS Stream (HSF) reader, no eDrawings needed: meshes, colours, placements, part tree and names
USD	.usd .usda .usdc .usdz	⚠️ partial	meshes and transforms (tinyusdz)
DXF	.dxf	⚠️ partial	3D faces and meshes only (no 2D drawings, no ACIS solids)
Blender	.blend	⚠️ partial	old 2.7x files only (assimp). Blender 2.8+: File › Export › Wavefront (.obj) with materials, glTF 2.0 or FBX, then open the export
Others (assimp)	.x .lwo .ac .ase .ms3d .md2…	⚠️	via assimp
Parasolid	.x_t .x_b	❌	clear message: no free reader - export to STEP
DWG / SketchUp / Rhino	.dwg .skp .3dm	❌	clear message: LibreDWG is GPL, the SketchUp SDK is proprietary; export to DXF/IFC, DAE/glTF, STEP/OBJ

Known limits

• Revit: shapes are rebuilt from the stored parameters (Revit does not store its B-rep in the file), so joins and openings can differ slightly from Revit. Elements whose geometry is not stored in a decodable form get the closest stand-in instead of a bounding box: plumbing fixtures drawn only as plan symbols (2D lines and filled regions, no solids in Revit either) show as 1 cm plates of their filled region stretched over the fixture's footprint; rebar of older files with no cached centre lines (Revit 2018) is laid out as straight bars or closed ties at the set's bar count, spacing and diameter inside the set's box; stair stringers without a stored solid are rebuilt from their path line, width and depth; planting and entourage (picture-based RPC) are simple trees, people and cars. Elements that still have no shape at all fall back to a bounding box coloured by category (none in the public samples). Sheets: model element line weights per category, detail components and calculated tag values (area…) are not drawn yet. For the exact geometry, export to IFC from Revit and open the .ifc in ModelCraft.
• eDrawings .easm / .eprt: read natively (clean-room HSF reader written from Tech Soft 3D's public format documentation; eDrawings does not need to be installed). Tested with HSF V18.00 and V19.10 streams (eDrawings 2014 to 2026). Not handled yet: Edgebreaker-compressed shells and globally quantized points (not written by the eDrawings versions tested), textures (shown with their base colour), 2D drawing sheets, markups and embedded OLE pictures; stored normals are recomputed; only the first configuration is shown; conditional includes are always drawn. An unknown opcode stops the reading and keeps the geometry read so far.
• Parasolid .x_t: not supported (no free reader); export to STEP. SolidWorks files without a display mesh still hold their Parasolid B-rep; an independent XT reader is possible but is weeks of work.
• MeshData/Config-N-Mesh-* streams (mesh bodies of recent SolidWorks files, often the only data in very large scan/STL-import files): streamed when DisplayLists is empty; only the first configuration is read and per-body colours are not applied yet.
• Blender .blend: old 2.7x files only; export OBJ, glTF or FBX from Blender 2.8+.
• DWG, SketchUp, Rhino: not supported (see NOTICE.md).
• SolidWorks: only the stored display mesh is used (no B-rep recompute); a file without graphics data shows its thumbnail only.
• Some file-reader error messages are still in French in the English interface.
• Measurements on meshes (STL/OBJ/3DS): no exact diameter (no analytic faces).
• No export and no saved annotations: viewer only.

Highlights

Navigation and tools

• Blender shortcuts by default (Settings › Navigation › Blender shortcuts, can be turned off): middle click = orbit, Shift+middle click = pan, Ctrl+middle click = zoom, numpad 1/3/7 (+Ctrl = opposite view), 5 ortho, 2/4/6/8 = rotate by 15°, 9 opposite view, numpad . (or ,) = frame the selection, Home = frame all, G move, R rotate, middle double-click = frame all. Every shortcut is listed in Help › Shortcuts.
• Pan tool (hand, Q): left click pans the view.
• Move (G) and Rotate (R) a part with a gizmo: X/Y/Z arrows, X/Y/Z rings (Ctrl = 15° steps, angle shown), or drag the part to spin it freely. Reset puts the selection (otherwise everything) back.
• Gizmo pivot: bounding box centre (default), object centre, 3D cursor (Alt+click / Alt+drag to place it on the surface) or world origin.
• Undo / redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y / Ctrl+Shift+Z): moves, rotations, explode, opacities, hide / isolate.
• Collapsible side panels (T / N), state remembered.
• Synchronised hover between the 3D view and the tree.

Display

• Lighter view (blue-grey background, headlight that follows the camera) with a readable dark theme.
• Stable edges from any angle.
• Exploded view: each part moves away from the model centre in a straight line, never flips direction; also works on a single-body part (explode by faces, ≤ 1500 faces). Toolbar button
  • floating 0-100 % panel, discreet explode lines.
• Turntable rotation by default (the vertical axis stays vertical); Settings › Navigation › Rotation: Turntable or Free (trackball).
• Readable numbers: thousands separators and automatic units (6,115,613.46 mm² → 6.12 m²).
• Missing assembly components: wider, case-insensitive search (original path, moved project tree, then the whole project folder, bounded).

Formats and installation

• Windows installer (Inno Setup): Start menu, optional desktop icon, one checkbox per file extension, clean uninstall.
• OBJ + .mtl: opacity, UV-mapped textures (map_Kd, alpha cut-out), Blender sharp edges, concave n-gons triangulated without distortion. A texture referenced by an absolute path from another PC (F:/…/texture.png) is found next to the .obj/.mtl.

Usage (Windows)

Installer: run dist\ModelCraft-Setup-0.4.0.exe (no admin rights, installed for the current user). It creates the Start menu entries (ModelCraft + scanner) and offers one checkbox per extension to associate. Uninstall: Windows Settings › Apps.

Portable: copy dist\modelcraft.exe anywhere (e.g. C:\Tools\ModelCraft\). No DLLs.

• Open: + Open button / Ctrl+O, drag and drop (a dropped folder is pinned on the home page), or modelcraft.exe "F:\path\part.step". Several files open in tabs (middle click = close; right click = close / reload / show in Explorer / copy path).
• Home: supported formats, pinned folders (list of the folder's models), recent files with path and size.
• File associations: Settings → General → File associations → Associate (or modelcraft.exe --associate). Adds ModelCraft to "Open with" for the current user (HKCU), no admin rights.
• Background loading with a progress window: file name and size, step, bytes read, elapsed time, Cancel button.

Large files (hundreds of MB)

The SolidWorks loader streams with bounded memory:

• the file stays memory-mapped; only the DisplayLists stream is read;
• above 128 MB decompressed, it is decoded straight from the decompressor in two passes (statistics, then building the pre-allocated mesh), never keeping the decompressed stream;
• a vertex budget is computed from the available memory (2 M to 40 M); above it the mesh is simplified for display (vertex clustering) with a warning - the file is never modified;
• allocations are fallible: out of memory gives a clear message instead of a crash.

Measured (synthetic 836 MB file, 60 M vertices, 1.4 GB decompressed): loaded in ~17 s, peak memory ~1.8 GB (simplified to 12.5 M vertices); ~2.9 GB when displayed exactly.

Environment variables: MODELCRAFT_MAX_VERTICES=100000000 (vertex budget), MODELCRAFT_STREAM=1 (forces streaming decode even for small files).

Load diagnostics: --diag

Start-Process -Wait "C:\path\modelcraft.exe" -ArgumentList '--diag','"F:\path\big.SLDPRT"','--diag-out',"$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\diag.txt"
Get-Content "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\diag.txt"

Loads the file without a window and writes a timestamped report (flushed line by line, so useful even after a crash): system, memory, container streams, steps, memory every 2 s, result, mesh statistics. Default: %APPDATA%\ModelCraft\diag-<name>.txt. Exit codes: 0 ok, 1 read error, 2 invalid file, 3 panic. If the application crashes: %APPDATA%\ModelCraft\crash.log.

Assembly tools (viewer only, nothing is saved)

• Move a component with the gizmo, reset.
• Opacity per component and global, transparent mode.
• Exploded view (0-100 % slider, explode lines).
• From the Assembly panel, the Tools menu, right click and the Ctrl+K palette.

Menus, palette, context menus

• File / Edit / View / Tools / Help menu bar with shortcuts.
• Ctrl+K: search palette for every command and the recent files.
• Right click in the 3D view: hide / isolate / zoom to selection, show all, fit, standard views, measuring tools, projection, edges, box, section, grid, copy dimensions, PNG capture.
• Right click in the tree: hide, isolate, show all, zoom to, copy name.

Measurements (Measure mode)

Tool	Result
Bounding box	L × W × H overlay (B), copyable (Ctrl+Shift+C)
Distance	between two points (vertex / midpoint snapping), with ΔX ΔY ΔZ
Edge	edge length
Diameter	Ø of a hole / cylinder (fitted on the face)
Angle	between two faces
Face	area of the selected face
Volume / area	of the model, in the Dimensions panel
Section	adjustable X/Y/Z section plane (X)

Mouse and keyboard ("Blender" navigation by default, configurable)

Action	Command
Orbit	middle click (or left click) + drag
Pan	Shift+middle click, right click, or the Pan tool (Q) + left click
Zoom (to the cursor)	wheel (invertible), Ctrl+middle click
Frame all · frame selection	Home / F / middle double-click · numpad . / ,
Views (numpad or top row)	1 front · 3 right · 7 top · Ctrl+1/3/7 opposite · 0 iso · 9 opposite view · 5 ortho · 2/4/6/8 rotate by 15°
Move · rotate a part	G · R (press again to leave), Ctrl = 15° steps
Undo · redo	Ctrl+Z · Ctrl+Y / Ctrl+Shift+Z
Hide / isolate / show all	H / I or / / Shift+H or Alt+H
Edges · box · section · grid	E · B · X · Shift+G
Tree · info panel	T · P or N
Settings · palette · full screen	Ctrl+, · Ctrl+K · F11

Navigation styles: Blender (default), SolidWorks, CAD (AutoCAD/Inventor).

Settings (%APPDATA%\ModelCraft\settings.json)

• General: language English / Français (follows the Windows language), light / dark / system theme, accent colour, number of recent files, associations.
• Display: gradient or plain background, lighting (studio, soft, contrast…), default colour, edges (on/off, width, colour), axes, grid, view cube.
• Navigation: style, inverted zoom, perspective / orthographic, field of view, default view.
• Measurements: units (mm, cm, m, in), decimals.
• Performance: MSAA anti-aliasing, STEP/IGES mesh quality.
• Reset restores every default.

Command line:

modelcraft.exe [files…] [--lang en|fr] [--theme dark|light] [--view iso|front|top|right|back|bottom|left]
               [--size 1600x1000] [--no-edges] [--show view:<name>|measure|settings|…] [--screenshot shot.png] [--ephemeral]
modelcraft.exe --associate
modelcraft.exe --diag file [--diag-out report.txt]

Checking a whole archive: swcraft-scan

swcraft-scan.exe "F:\Archive" --csv C:\Temp\scan.csv --json C:\Temp\scan.json

• Walks the folder recursively and never writes into it (read-only, links not followed, ~$… files skipped).
• Every ModelCraft format is checked with the same code as the viewer.
• Crash-proof: each heavy or suspicious file is read in a separate process (memory limit via Job Object, timeout); a reader crash is reported as crash and the scan goes on.
• Double-click swcraft-scan.exe for interactive mode (asks for the folder).
• Per file: format, ok, partial, no_mesh, unsupported, error + faces, triangles, components, time, message. Summary per format and median / p95 / max time.
• Options: --threads N, --timeout 120, --max-size 1G, --mem-limit 8G, --isolate auto|all|none, --log file, --no-external, --quiet. CSV separated by ; with BOM.

Building from source

Requirements: Rust ≥ 1.95.

Windows (MSVC or GNU):

cargo build --release
target\release\modelcraft.exe

Linux:

sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev libxkbcommon-dev   # file dialog + keyboard
cargo build --release
./target/release/modelcraft file.SLDPRT
./target/release/swcraft-scan folder/ --csv /tmp/scan.csv

STEP / IGES need the occt feature and a static build of OpenCascade 7.8.1 (BUILD_LIBRARY_TYPE=Static):

OCCT_INC=/path/occt/include/opencascade OCCT_LIB=/path/occt/lib \
  cargo build --release -p swcraft -p swcraft-scan --features swcraft/occt,swcraft-scan/occt

Without occt, ModelCraft works for every other format and shows a message for STEP/IGES.

FBX, glTF, 3MF… need the assimp feature (static assimp 6.0.2, ASSIMP_DIR = install prefix holding lib/libassimp.a and lib/libzlibstatic.a, built with -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF -DASSIMP_BUILD_VRML_IMPORTER=OFF -DASSIMP_BUILD_USD_IMPORTER=ON). IFC needs the ifc feature: web-ifc built statically (cmake --build <dir> --target web-ifc-library with -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-Dmapbox=wi_mapbox), WEBIFC_SRC=<web-ifc>/src/cpp and WEBIFC_BUILD=<build dir>. Full example: --features swcraft/occt,swcraft/assimp,swcraft/ifc,swcraft-scan/occt,swcraft-scan/assimp,swcraft-scan/ifc.

Cross-compiling Linux → Windows (used for dist/, OCCT built with mingw "posix"):

rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
sudo apt install mingw-w64
CXX_x86_64_pc_windows_gnu=x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++-posix \
OCCT_INC=/path/occt/include/opencascade OCCT_LIB=/path/occt-mingw/win64/gcc/lib \
  cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -p swcraft --features swcraft/occt,swcraft/assimp,swcraft/ifc

(.cargo/config.toml sets the mingw linker and the static CRT; the icon and version info are embedded with windres.)

scripts/build-release.sh does all of it: it builds the three native libraries once into deps/ (scripts/build-deps.sh), then both executables with every format into dist/. From Windows, through Docker:

docker build -t modelcraft-cross -f scripts/Dockerfile.cross scripts
docker run --rm -v "%CD%:/src" -v mc-deps:/src/deps -v mc-target:/src/target -w /src modelcraft-cross bash scripts/build-release.sh deps

Windows installer (Inno Setup 6, free) and portable zip: after the Windows build has put both .exe into dist/,

python3 installer/gen_iss.py            # writes installer/modelcraft.iss (extensions from platform.rs, version from Cargo.toml)
iscc installer\modelcraft.iss           # Windows; on Linux: wine "C:\InnoSetup6\ISCC.exe" ...
python3 scripts/package.py              # portable zip

produces dist/ModelCraft-Setup-<version>.exe and dist/ModelCraft-<version>-portable.zip.

GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/ci.yml): every push runs the tests on Linux and Windows, then the full Windows build (native libraries cached), the installer and the portable zip, kept as workflow artifacts. A push to main also publishes the release v<version> with both files; bump version in Cargo.toml for a new release, otherwise the release of the current version is replaced by the new build.

Diagnostic tool: cargo run --release -p sw-format --example swinfo -- file.SLDASM [--streams] [--obj out.obj].

Tests

Test files are not in the repository (.gitignore). Integration tests read the folder given by SW_SAMPLES (and RVT_SAMPLES for Revit) and are skipped when it is missing:

SW_SAMPLES=/path/to/samples RVT_SAMPLES=/path/to/revit cargo test --release

Giant synthetic file for the loader: cargo run --release -p sw-format --example synth_big -- out.SLDPRT 60.

Rendering

wgpu (DirectX 12 / Vulkan / OpenGL depending on the machine), adjustable MSAA, studio lighting, B-rep edges overlay, gradient background, selection highlight, section plane. If GPU setup fails, ModelCraft restarts with Vulkan then OpenGL. Force a backend with WGPU_BACKEND=dx12|vulkan|gl.

Licence

MIT for ModelCraft's code. Interface code adapted from PdfCraft (MIT/Apache-2.0), Lucide icons (ISC), Inter and JetBrains Mono fonts (OFL), OpenCascade (LGPL-2.1), assimp (BSD-3), web-ifc (MPL-2.0): details in NOTICE.md.