Sketchfab Store for 3D Models Officially Out of Beta Mode and Open for Business

Founded in 2012, Sketchfab is the world’s largest 3D model platform, and a very popular place for its over 1.5 million community members – mostly hobbyists and professionals – to easily discover, publish, and share 3D content. The platform’s download feature was launched four years ago, and the site now also features an entire ecosystem of various 3D platforms, including augmented and virtual reality.

As the site continues to grow, Sketchfab has helped its community share work through not only its platform, but also through more than 90 sharing integrations, including Adobe, Blender, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.

But its founders realized that Sketchfab was going to need a way to distribute 3D content outside of the platform, in order to make it easy for anyone to find and publish content online in these creative times.

So it began working on something completely new – a Sketchfab store, which was a natural next step. A dedicated store would let 3D content creators easily integrate 3D models uploaded by the Sketchfab community into their virtual worlds without any attribution.

The store has been in beta form since early this year, with early adopter buyers and sellers checking it out. For the last six months, the team has been gathering feedback from its early users and adding some new features to increase the experience. But Sketchfab has finally launched the store out of beta, so its users can monetize their work on a single platform – and the company is offering our readers an exclusive discount this week.

“Sketchfab’s store is a great place to buy assets because customers can inspect models from all angles instead of browsing through cherry-picked presentation images. For sellers, it’s hassle-free as there is no need to create extensive presentation material. It’s easy to create great looking 3D previews and even showcase animations,” said Matthias Andre, the Co-Founder and Art Director of Bitgem, which creates 3D models and textures for game developers.

The Sketchfab Store will allow content creators the ability to integrate tens of thousands of 3D models and textures into virtual worlds, and is the first to allow customers, before they purchase a 3D model, to inspect it from every possible angle and aspect – including topology and textures – in real time.

That’s because it combines a browser-based 3D player with an advanced, first-in-the-market Model Inspector feature, so customers working on multiple 3D projects, ranging from 3D printing and video games to animal and architectural renderings, can be confident in the 3D models they’re purchasing, and not have to guess if the 3D digital files they’re buying online are good.

Additionally, the Sketchfab Viewer supports AR and VR right out of the box for another way to review the store’s content.

“We’re extremely excited to launch the Sketchfab store after a successful open beta. The store allows our extraordinarily talented community to easily monetize their work on a single platform, while the model inspector takes the guesswork out 3D model purchases,” said Alban Denoyel, CEO and Co-Founder of Sketchfab. “We cannot thank our early adopter buyers and sellers enough for sharing their thoughtful feedback and making the official store as strong as possible!”

Several big name brands like Amazon, HTC, and Sony, among others, already trust the Sketchfab Store, which is becoming, in the platform’s own words, “the go-to destination for buyers with significant industry asset purchase needs.”

In addition to launching its long-awaited store, Sketchfab also recently announced two new content partnerships. Apple at WWDC is one of the launching partners of its new 3D format, while Facebook at f8 integrates its AR studio platform. Good news for our faithful readers – Sketchfab is also offering you a 10% discount to its new store. Just use the exclusive code 3DPRINT, valid through July 8th.

Discuss Sketchfab’s new store, and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

[Images provided by Sketchfab]