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.