01
CAD
The real model.
The client's own product files — the STEP, the FBX, the configurator's GLB — not a re-modelled likeness. What the buyer sees is the geometry the factory builds from.
SOURCE · CLIENT-OWNED
The second practice — live interactive 3D
Not a video. The product, live.
DH Studios builds live interactive 3D in the browser — product configurators, simulators, real-time renders — on the same CAD the product is built from. Type on the board below, orbit the rack, relight the shoe, then pull the watch apart.
sample model, CC BY 4.0
LIVE 3D — THE SHELF
Everything we built, on one floor.
DEMO 01 — SPLIT-FLAP BOARD
Type it. Watch it flip.
Every character steps forward through the real 64-position drum, one flap at a time.
Type a messageDEMO 01 — SPLIT-FLAP BOARD MOCKUP, BUILT BY DH STUDIOS
Type it. Watch it flip.
A split-flap board, built by DH Studios, live in your browser: every character steps forward through the real 64-position drum, one flap at a time, on a generic DH-built board. Built on the same drum code as the true-3D product studio DH built for Vestaboard. This board is a mockup made for this site; the real tools Vestaboard’s sales and marketing team uses stay internal.
Read the Vestaboard case study →LIVE DEMO · STATIC PREVIEW
3 × 15 · 64-POSITION DRUM · FORWARD ONLY
FLAPBOARD — PROCEDURAL · R3F
DEMO 02 — SORINEX · RACK VIEWER
Real steel. Orbit it.
Three Sorinex Base Camp racks from the real CAD, rendering under the lights right now. Drag to orbit, switch the model. This is the geometry a configurator is built on, not a render of it. Sorinex's rack viewer, colorway customizer and configurator are all in build.
Read the Sorinex case study →How we build 3D product configurators →
LIVE RENDER · STATIC PREVIEW
KEY WHITE · FILL PALE BLUE · RIM SOFT BLUE
SORINEX HALF RACK — DRACO GLB · R3F
MODEL — BASE CAMP SERIES
Each rack is the client's own CAD export, decimated and Draco-compressed for the web — a file that was hundreds of megabytes becomes one the browser decodes in a blink.
The rack renders live on desktop; on a phone, tap to run it.
DEMO 03 — LIGHT RIG
Move the lights. Watch it relight.
The product from the top of the page, under three studio lamps: key, fill and rim. It turns slowly so the light travels over every surface. Drag a lamp anywhere around it and the render answers as you move.
STATIC PREVIEW
SAMPLE MODEL, CC BY 4.0
LAMPS — THREE-POINT LIGHT
The rig runs live on desktop; on a phone, tap to run it.
HOW IT'S BUILT — CAD → GLB → BROWSER
Live, from the source files.
02
GLB
Made for the browser.
Decimated to what a screen can resolve, materials normalised, Draco-compressed. Hundreds of megabytes of CAD become a file under two megabytes that decodes in a blink.
PIPELINE · DRACO · LAZY-LOADED
03
BROWSER
Live, no video.
React Three Fiber renders it live, lit like a product shot, driven by what the visitor types, drags, or chooses. Nothing is pre-rendered; there is no file to play.
RUNTIME · WEBGL · THREE.JS / R3F
EXPLODED VIEW — EVERY PART IS ITS OWN PIECE
Pull it apart.
A product file is not one solid lump. Each part is its own piece of geometry, so a viewer can take it apart, label every part, or recolor just the band. Drag the slider to pull the watch apart yourself.
SAMPLE MODEL · CHRONOGRAPH WATCH
- 1Glass
- 2Hands
- 3Dial
- 4Bezel
- 5Case back
- 6Buttons and screws
- 7Band
- 8Clasp
Live 3D work
The case studies behind the demos
THE PROCESS — DISCOVERY → PILOT → EXPAND
One director, concept to running system.
01
DISCOVERY
About two weeks with your CAD, your product line, and the decision the 3D has to help a buyer make — configure, compare, or simply believe.
Output: a one-page pilot brief. The model set, the interactions, where it embeds.
02
PILOT
One product, live in the browser, on your site: a configurator, a simulator, or a real-time render, built on the real geometry and lit like the photography.
Output: a running build, a link you can send, and a number you can check against the old renders.
03
EXPAND
The next product, the next interaction — colorways, accessories, exports, a hand-off to the people who take the order. Nothing gets rebuilt; it gets extended.
Output: a roadmap in the order the buyer feels the difference.
Film archive — the craft behind the live work
Before live 3D: product films
Five films from DH Studios' 3D work. Film is history now, not a service we sell; it is the craft the live work is built on.
CREDITS — 3D models: the Sorinex racks are client-owned CAD, prepared for the web by DH Studios and rendered live; the split-flap board is a generic board built by DH Studios. The shoe and the watch are free sample models, shown as samples and not client work: Materials Variants Shoe © 2021 Shopify and Chronograph Watch © 2025 Darmstadt Graphics Group, both under CC BY 4.0. DH Studios compressed them for the web and took the logos off the watch. No hosted embeds.