Volty

Volty is a lightweight 3D model and point-cloud viewer for Visual Studio Code. It lets you inspect spatial data inside the editor instead of switching to a separate desktop viewer.

Screenshots

CityJSON

Data: 3D BAG tile 9-284-556

Point clouds

Data: AHN5 COPC LAZ tile C_085000_446000

.obj files

Data: Wooden Watch Tower, Free3D

Supported formats

Format	Support
CityJSON (`.json`)	Geometry, LoD switching, semantic surface colours, model details, and conversion warnings.
Wavefront OBJ (`.obj`)	Mesh geometry preview.
glTF (`.gltf`, `.glb`)	Mesh preview.
PLY (`.ply`)	Point-cloud preview, including available vertex colours.
LAS / LAZ / COPC LAZ (`.las`, `.laz`, `COPC.LAZ`)	Uniformly sampled preview with elevation, intensity, return, and classification colouring.

Features

Open supported files from the Volty Activity Bar, Explorer, or Command Palette.
Fit the camera to a model and orbit, pan, and zoom with standard Three.js controls.
Toggle the grid, axes, edges, surface colour, and dark background.
Collapse the toolbar and properties panel for a full renderer view.
Inspect file format, object and triangle counts, CityJSON LoDs, semantic surface counts, and point-cloud metadata.
Colour point clouds by elevation, RGB, intensity, return number, number of returns, or classification.
Filter visible LAS/LAZ classifications directly from the properties panel.

Install and run

Development

Windows

npm.cmd install
npm.cmd run compile

macOS / Linux

npm install
npm run compile

Press F5 in VS Code to start an Extension Development Host. Select Volty in the Activity Bar, then choose a supported file, or run Volty: Open Model from the Command Palette.

Install a VSIX

Windows

npx vsce package
code --install-extension volty-1.0.0.vsix

macOS / Linux

npx vsce package
code --install-extension volty-1.0.0.vsix

Note: If the code command is not available, open VS Code and run Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH from the Command Palette.

Restart VS Code after installation if Volty does not appear immediately.

Project layout

volty/
├── src/
│   ├── extension.ts       # VS Code commands, Activity Bar, and webview host
│   ├── model/              # File parsers and common model representation
│   ├── pointcloud/         # LAS/LAZ and COPC preview workers
│   └── webview/
│       └── main.ts         # Three.js renderer and viewer interaction
├── media/                  # Activity Bar icon and generated webview bundle
└── scripts/
    └── build-webview.cjs   # Webview bundle configuration

Next steps

Support to .ifc
Object and surface selection.

License

Volty is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Volty 3D

Niranjan Pradeep