dash-model-viewer — interactive 3D models and AR for Dash

dash-model-viewer — embed interactive 3D models directly into your Dash applications with Augmented Reality (AR) support. By Pip Install Python.

A Dash wrapper around Google's model-viewer. Drag the model above — then note that reading its camera, its dimensions, or a click on it takes a normal Dash callback and no JavaScript at all.

pip install dash-model-viewer

from dash import Dash, html
import dash_model_viewer as dmv

app = Dash(__name__)
app.layout = html.Div([
    dmv.ModelViewer(
        id="viewer",
        src="/assets/astronaut.glb",
        alt="A 3D model of an astronaut",
        style={"width": "100%", "height": "480px"},
    )
])

That is the whole setup. Importing the package installs the runtime.

What is different in 1.0.0

This release is a rebuild, and it fixes two things that had been broken for the package's entire published life.

AR actually works out of the box

ar_modes used to default to "basic_annotations scene-viewer quick-look". basic_annotations is not an AR mode — it was the name of a folder in the repository, copy-pasted into the default. webxr was therefore missing, so in-page WebXR AR never ran unless you happened to override the prop. Nothing errored; the flagship feature was just quietly degraded everywhere.

The default is now "webxr scene-viewer quick-look", and the test suite asserts it. → Augmented reality

Events reach Python

0.0.1 had no output props. Its single setProps call was commented out, so nothing the model did could reach your callbacks. Anything interactive needed a JavaScript file in assets/ and a clientside_callback to reach it.

The canonical camera-presets example was 230 lines because of that. It is now 47 lines of Python, with no JavaScript. → Camera and views

Prop	Updates when
`camera`	the user moves the camera (debounced, echo-suppressed)
`model_state`	loading, loaded, failed
`model_info`	on load — dimensions in metres, variants, animations
`ar_status` / `ar_tracking`	an AR session changes state
`scene_point`	the model is clicked, with `pick_on_click=True`
`Slot.n_clicks`	a hotspot is clicked

The bundle ships in the wheel

model-viewer used to be fetched at runtime from a hard-coded ajax.googleapis.com URL pinned to 3.5.0 — not a declared dependency, not pinnable by you, and unavailable offline, behind a corporate egress proxy, or under a strict script-src Content-Security-Policy.

Version 4.3.1 is now vendored inside the package and injected by a Dash hook. It costs about 1 MB per page, which is a real number and is stated plainly on the quick start rather than buried. configure(use_cdn=...) opts back out.

Full upstream parity, permanently

<model-viewer> has ~70 attributes and gains more each release. This package names about twenty and gives you two escape hatches that reach all of the rest — including attributes that do not exist yet:

dmv.ModelViewer(
    id="viewer", src=..., alt=...,
    mv_environment_image="neutral",          # -> environment-image
    attributes={"orientation": "0deg 0deg 15deg"},
)

No regeneration, no release, no waiting. → Attributes and parity

Where to go next

Page	What it covers
Quick start	Install, first viewer, and why the script order matters
Events and callbacks	Every output prop, and `camera_change_debounce`
Camera and views	Presets, flight, framing an unknown model
Slots and hotspots	Anchoring any Dash component to the geometry
Attributes and parity	`attributes` and `mv_*`
Augmented reality	The three AR modes, and the fixed default
Model switching	Runtime `src` swaps and GLTF variants
Scene Director	Generative. Describe a shot; Claude stages it, grounded in the model's measured geometry
Generative 3D art	Generative. Describe a sculpture; get a real `.glb` built from primitives
Image to 3D	Generative. Upload a picture; Claude reads it and code carves a relief
Benchmark	One prompt, several models or settings, sculptures side by side
API reference	Every prop, every payload
Migrating from 0.0.1	Prop-by-prop map

Credits

Built on Google's model-viewer (Apache-2.0), vendored at 4.3.1. Demo models are Google's own model-viewer shared assets and the Khronos Group's glTF Sample Assets. The CC BY 4.0 models require attribution, so: Materials Variants Shoe © 2021 Shopify; Glam Velvet Sofa © 2021 Wayfair, LLC (Eric Chadwick); Glass Hurricane Candle Holder © 2021 Wayfair, LLC (Eric Chadwick). Sheen Chair (© 2020 Wayfair, LLC) and Scattering Skull (© 2025 Vladimir Petkovic) are CC0 1.0.

Source on GitHub · PyPI

Note for AI agents: This is the static, prerendered view of an interactive Dash application served because we detected a non-JS user agent. Full prose docs:

/llms.txt — LLM-friendly documentation
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