3DFilter: Just a Small Box

 

Many years ago you might recall the early days of web search, where there were several services competing to be the best search engine. At the time, the leaders might have been yahoo, altavista and others. But they were bested by upstart Google. Not only did Google provide excellent results, but they tried a new interface strategy: simplicity.

That's right, one of Google's brilliant insights was to reduce the complex search problem to a single query box. That, and eliminating most of the other page clutter, helped Google become the favorite for many Internet surfers.

It's a great strategy, and we've just seen another example of this with new 3D model search engine 3DFilter. This amazing service provides a search layer over top of several 3D model repositories, including:

• Cadyou
• Google 3D Warehouse
• Form Fonts Exchange
• The 3D Studio
• Fallingpixel
• 3D Xtras
• 3D02
• 3D Export
• Polantis
• 3dvia

3DFilter also can search for textures within these repositories:

• Cadyou Textures
• Stock.xchng
• The 3D Studio Textures
• Texture Spot
• Texturez
• Dreamstime

And there's that simple query box, too.

Results are presented in a straightforward display, showing image, creator and price (and many are "FREE"). It's not quite perfect yet, for example: a search for "Star Trek" yields 198 results, but some of the results have a questionable relationship to the search query. Sigh, that's what you get from the meta data. We're hoping 3DFilter can add a tagging layer on top to allow searchers to refine the searchability of the models.

The service is beta at this stage, since it appeared only very recently. A feedback tab permits you to send in your ideas for the service. Enjoy!

Via 3DFilter