F3D vs Nanome

F3D is free software for viewing 3D data, browsing models, and generating renderings. It supports lighting and materials for realistic rendering, animations with GPU-accelerated skinning for character rigs, and visualization tasks such as CAD, Gaussian splatting, volume rendering, and scientific work. Its supported formats include VTK, STL, DICOM, STEP, OBJ, glTF, FBX, USD, IFC, and Gaussian splat files, among many others. Packages are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, and a browser viewer can open or accept dropped files and provides rendering and display controls. Developers can use a Python package, a beta JavaScript/WebAssembly package, or the libf3d C++ library with Python and Java bindings. F3D is distributed under the BSD 3-Clause License. Some capabilities have specific limits: FBX PBR materials and Alembic materials are unsupported, while Gaussian splatting requires OpenGL 4.3, which macOS does not support. Documentation also says volume rendering and HDRI need a decent GPU. Plugins can vary by package.

Nanome is a collaborative platform for visualizing molecular structures and supporting drug discovery work. People can review proteins and small molecules together in real time across web and XR workspaces. Its tools cover measurement, selection, molecule building, protein-ligand interaction analysis, docking pose review, molecular dynamics playback, and rendering. MARA, Nanome’s AI copilot, provides more than 300 scientific tools across 26 categories, including docking, structure prediction, cheminformatics, genomics, and materials science. The platform also offers a REST API for each MARA tool, Jupyter integration, and a Claude Code skill and MCP server. The free web tier accepts PDB, SDF, and CIF uploads; its Starter plan includes three workspaces, one project, 50 MARA credits, five recent files, and seven days of chat history. Paid plans start at $4.17/user/mo billed annually. Every new account gets a 14-day Full license trial without a credit card.