ES3D – An SVG like file format for 3D scenes – Extensible Scalable 3D

ES3D (Extensible Scalable 3D) describes objects procedurally rather than storing every vertex and face. A forest that would take megabytes as an OBJ file can fit in under a kilobyte, with the viewer generating geometry on demand. Comparison to other formats including close competitors exists in whitepaper preprint and on the site generally.

This project is open-source under Apache 2.0 and the whitepaper preprint can be found in the media section.

Overall this creates substantial savings on scenes with simple geometric elements, but offers no benefits for exclusively mesh scenes. It is not suitable for very complex or organic designs, simikar to how SVG isn't a replacement for PNG/JPEG/WEBP, but has a variety of web applications.