I’m looking at a new meta-search engine for 3D models, 3DSearch.
By “meta-search”, I mean that this site doesn’t actually house the 3D models themselves. Instead, it searches multiple large 3D model repositories and provides the results in a unified presentation.
That type of function has been done before, with perhaps the best example being Yeggi. Yeggi has been around for a very long time, and while I use it occasionally, I really don’t like it at all. The user interface is confusing and unattractive, and honestly, it hasn’t really changed in probably ten years. More, probably, since the site has been around since at least 2013, and it still looks the same.
Imagine my surprise when I opened up 3DSearch, thinking I would see much the same as Yeggi.
It really isn’t at all like Yeggi. 3DSearch has a very clean, modern interface with a lot of intelligence put into the design. As I used it, everything seemed to be in the right place, making it a pleasure to use.
But let’s back up a moment. The site works by indexing the major 3D model sites, including:
- Thingiverse
- Printables
- Cults
- MakerWorld
- MyMiniFactory
- MakerOnline
- GrabCAD
- Creality Cloud
These are definitely the majority of sites holding actually printable 3D models. There are many other 3D model sites, but most of them are really focused on 3D models as visual assets: they aren’t necessarily printable. This is one of the issues plaguing Yeggi, where you might end up with non-printable results.
3DSearch allows you to enable or disable each of the sources, so you can “remove” sites you don’t wish to support.
The search results are presented in a uniform manner, and each has its own item page, again presented in an attractive manner. Each result is visibly tagged with the source. To download, the page will redirect you to the original source page where you actually initiate the download.
The item page also includes a list of “Similar Models”, which span all the covered sites. In other words, you are truly doing searches across all of these sites as if they were a single repository.
There’s another interesting twist here: 3DSearch says they cover 6.1M 3D models, which is a lot. However, if you were to add up the total models from all of the individual sites you’d get a number much larger than that. We know, however, that many 3D models are duplicated between these sites, as designers try to get their works in as many places as possible. Does this mean that 3DSearch is filtering out duplicates?
3DSearch also includes functions to rate models, make collections, and other similar abilities that you would find in a “direct” 3D model site. I’m not sure how well they would be used in a meta site like 3DSearch, because it really depends on how users accept the service.
What I mean is this: would someone NEVER go to the sites themselves and instead always use 3DSearch? If so, it would make sense to make collections and ratings there.
But would someone really do that? I propose that might be difficult because each of the sites is trying very hard to be “sticky” and make you stay on their site by introducing a range of sticky features. If you migrated to 3DSearch, you might lose some of that functionality.
But that may not matter for many 3D printer operators who are simply looking for the best “whatever” across all the 3D model sites.
And for that, 3DSearch is a great option.
Via 3DSearch
