Virtual Reality evolved: Sketchfab VR apps and WebVR support

We are very excited to announce the release of our apps for Virtual Reality – available for Oculus, HTC Vive, Gear VR and Cardboard – as well as initial WebVR support on Sketchfab.

These apps provide a dedicated Virtual Reality experience and make Sketchfab available on more headsets. The apps are a curated showcase of models, and already a great illustration of what Sketchfab + VR means. Our goal is to scale them to let you browse the entire Sketchfab gallery in VR within the apps.

The other great news is that with our WebVR support, you can now explore ALL Sketchfab models in VR – not only with Cardboard, but with any VR headset. This now also includes positional tracking on all platforms that support it (Oculus and Vive). And it’s just a click away from any model – press the VR button to get started!

The best part is that you can now browse your own models in VR! No need to go through game engines anymore, just upload to Sketchfab as usual and your work will be VR-ready in a matter of seconds. With WebVR support, Sketchfab is the most seamless way to publish VR content.

This is an important milestone for us. Our users have been sharing amazing 3D creations on Sketchfab for the past 4 years, and VR offers the most natural and greatest way to experience those.

It is also a big milestone for the Virtual Reality ecosystem. If you look at VR content today, most of it is about games, and most of it is studio made. But the bulk of VR content will be user generated. If you look at user generated content for VR, most of it is 360 videos, but this is not what VR was built for.

VR needs a volumetric format, and that’s what Sketchfab content is about: a scene you can walk into and navigate with 6 degrees of freedom. We are the largest community of 3D creators, and with more than 750k 3D files published to date, our VR support make us the largest library of user generated VR content.

Sketchfab VR does not offer a wild gaming experience where you have to shoot monsters and think about how to survive. It’s much more of a contemplative experience: you are here to explore the world around you. It’s about places, things, objects, people. It’s about discovery. It’s about learning. Ever dreamed of teleporting yourself to Rome, inspecting a beating heart, or walking along dinosaurs? You can do all these things in Sketchfab VR.

Our goal is to make VR available to as many people as possible, and we hope you’ll be as excited about this as we are!