GemViewr

For jewelry CAD, it is not always obvious how to share iterations of their designs with their collaborators and clients. Most of us work on paid professional software such as Rhino, Solidworks or Zbrush, which our collaborators don't own and/or don't know how to use the most basic functionalities. Therefore we can't share the native files we are working on, so we must either export them in another form, or share screen recordings. The latter is quick but prone to miscommunication because in this case the collaborator is not able to review the model interactively, so they might miss a detail that is not obvious in the pictures/videos that we shared. The best solution is to share an interactive viewer, but the options there are limited. Most of these solutions require the collaborator to download and learn the use of a native software, which is always platform-specific (not available both on Window and Android for instance). The other alternative is the embedded 3D model into a PDF, which has been the de-facto compromise until now, but is very limited in materials and performs very badly, especially on mobile.

Mariotto Design created its own solution to remedy this problem and shared it for free with the community. GemViewr is a web-based 3D viewer with lots of jewelry materials, which makes it possible to share an interactive viewer with a simple link, which can be opened on any platform, mobile included.

How does it work ?

GemViewr is a website hosted on Mariotto Design's own AWS virtual servers (Amazon cloud services). The servers are based on nodeJS and postgreSQL databases.

The front-end was programmed using the usual web development stack, HTML, CSS and Javascript, along with a few more exotic technologies:

Three.js is a Javascript graphics engine based on WebGL. WebGL is the web version of OpenGL. It's a very verbose programming language, three.js makes its use simpler.

GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) is a very basic programming language similar to C, which can be used within WebGL (and three.js) to create custom shaders. This is the technology that Mariotto Design used for the gem materials of GemViewr.

Discover a few examples

Mariotto Design regularly releases demos if its work, including some 3D viewers. Following are a few of the nicest among these demo designs :

Egypt-inspired beads cuff

Onyx tiara

Earrings in collaboration with Estelle Lagarde (showcased here with her consent)

Star brooch in collaboration with Joy Hsieh (showcased here with her consent)

Classic diamond drop earrings

High jewelry snake ring