3D scene tab

The 3D SCENE tab renders your machine’s frame system as an interactive 3D visualization on your machine’s page in the Viam app. Frame configuration is otherwise invisible: a JSON translation of {x: 50, y: 0, z: 110} tells you nothing about whether the gripper actually sits where the arm needs it. The 3D SCENE tab makes that spatial relationship visible so you can catch misconfigurations before a motion plan fails.

The tab reads your machine’s configuration and, when the machine is online, connects for live data. Each component’s frame appears as a set of coordinate axes positioned by its translation and orientation relative to its parent frame. Attached geometries render as translucent shapes, and point clouds from depth cameras render as colored point sets.

The interface

The tab has four areas, each doing a distinct job: the viewport renders the scene; the World panel and Details panel select and inspect entities; the Dashboard toolbar changes how the viewport renders.

3D viewport (center): the interactive rendering area. Orbit, pan, and zoom to see your frame system from any angle. Components appear as labeled coordinate axes; attached geometries render as translucent shapes; point clouds render as colored point sets. An XY grid provides spatial reference.

World panel (floating, upper-left): A hierarchical list of every entity in the scene, titled World. The panel is always visible (it has no close button) but is draggable and resizable. The root node World mirrors your machine’s world frame. Each row shows an expand caret, the entity name, and an eye toggle. Click the eye or select the row and press H to hide or show the entity. Click a row to select the entity; its details appear in the Details panel.

Details panel (floating, upper-right): Shows the selected entity’s spatial properties. The panel is draggable and anchors to the top-right of the viewport by default. It includes:

• world position (mm) and world orientation (deg, as an orientation vector x / y / z / th): the entity’s absolute pose in the world frame. Read-only.
• parent frame: which frame this entity is a child of. Editable when the entity is a configurable frame.
• local position (mm) and local orientation (deg): pose relative to the parent frame. Editable for configurable frames; these correspond to the translation and orientation in your frame configuration.
• geometry: four buttons (None / Box / Sphere / Capsule) plus dimensions (x / y / z for Box, r / l for Capsule, r for Sphere, all in mm).

The panel header includes a Zoom to object button (centers the camera on the selected entity) and a copy-to-clipboard button next to the Details heading that exports the entity’s pose and geometry as JSON. Entities that can be removed (for example, dropped PCD files) also show a Remove from scene button in the header.

Dashboard toolbar (top-center): Visible buttons, left to right:

• Orthographic / Perspective toggle — switch between an orthographic view (no foreshortening) and a perspective view. Keyboard: C.
• Add frames — opens a floating panel listing components that do not yet have a frame; click a component and then Add frame (singular) to attach a default frame to it. See Edit frames visually.
• Measurement (ruler icon) — activate to measure distance between two points you pick in the viewport. Click the icon again to clear.
• Measurement settings (sliders icon next to the ruler) — toggle x, y, or z under Enabled axes to constrain the second point to the enabled axes of the first.
• AI Scene Builder — opens a prompt panel for editing frames with natural language. See Edit frames with AI.
• Logs — shows a count badge for errors/warnings from the scene renderer.
• Settings (gear icon) — opens the Settings panel.

Navigation controls

Holding ⌘ (or Ctrl) disables keyboard navigation, which is useful when you are editing a value in the Details panel. H only affects the currently selected or focused entity, so click an entity (or its row in the World panel) before pressing it.

Settings

Settings are grouped by what they affect: connection, scene decoration, point clouds, vision, widgets, and a few utility tabs. Click the gear icon to open the panel.

• Connection: polling rates for the scene’s data streams.
• Scene: toggle the grid, Object labels, hover detail tooltips, arm-model rendering (Arm Models), and line thickness.
• Pointclouds: set default point size and color, and enable or disable point cloud display per camera under Enabled cameras.
• Vision: enable or disable vision-service point-cloud entities.
• Widgets: show or hide the Arm positions widget and per-camera Camera widgets (a live camera feed floating alongside the 3D view).
• Stats: performance counters.
• Weblabs: feature-flag overrides (usually empty).
• VR / AR: only visible when the browser supports WebXR.

File import

You can drag and drop .pcd, .ply, or .json (scene snapshot) files directly onto the 3D viewport to load external data into the scene. This is useful for loading saved SLAM maps or point cloud captures for comparison with your live frame system.

Link related entities (HoverLink)

HoverLink links two indexable entities so that hovering an item in one highlights the matching item in the other. When you select a point cloud or arrows entity (typically dropped PCD or PLY files), the Details panel shows an Add Relationship button to set this up.

To add a HoverLink:

1. Select a point cloud or arrows entity in the World panel.
2. In the Details panel, click Add Relationship.
3. Pick HoverLink as the relationship type.
4. Pick a second entity from the Entity dropdown.
5. Set an Index mapping formula. The default index maps point N in the source to point N in the target. Other expressions over index map between non-aligned datasets.
6. Click Add.

After the link is added, hovering a point in the source entity highlights the matching point in the target entity (and updates the hover tooltip with both points’ positions). Existing links appear under Relationships in the Details panel and have per-link remove buttons.

This is useful for comparing point clouds that should align (a registered scan against a transformed version, ground-truth points against predicted points) without flipping back and forth between separate views.

How-to guides

[Calibrate frame offsets

Verify and adjust the spatial relationship between components using the 3D scene and measurement tool.](https://docs.viam.com/motion-planning/3d-scene/calibrate-frame-offsets/)

[Verify point cloud alignment

Display a depth camera's point cloud in the 3D scene to verify that the data aligns with your frame system and workspace geometry.](https://docs.viam.com/motion-planning/3d-scene/verify-point-cloud-alignment/)

[Verify obstacles

Visualize and adjust obstacle geometry so the motion planner routes around physical objects.](https://docs.viam.com/motion-planning/3d-scene/set-up-obstacle-avoidance/)

[Debug a motion plan

Use the 3D scene to inspect the frame system and obstacle geometry behind a motion plan that failed or produced unexpected results.](https://docs.viam.com/motion-planning/3d-scene/debug-motion-plan/)

[Edit frames visually

Add, edit, and attach geometry to frames directly in the 3D scene instead of editing JSON configuration.](https://docs.viam.com/motion-planning/3d-scene/edit-frames/)