3DTiles-Inspector

3dtiles-inspector is a Node.js package and CLI for opening a local 3D Tiles tileset in a browser inspector, adjusting the root transform, tuning the effective geometric error scale, and saving the result back to disk.

Requires Node.js 18 or newer.

Install

npm install 3dtiles-inspector

CLI

3dtiles-inspector <tileset_json>

npx 3dtiles-inspector <tileset_json>

From a cloned repository:

npm run cli -- <tileset_json>

The CLI starts a localhost HTTP server, copies the built inspector assets into a temporary directory, opens the default browser, and keeps running until you stop it with Ctrl+C.

<tileset_json> can be either:

• the root tileset JSON file, for example out_tiles/tileset.json
• a directory that contains tileset.json

Node API

const { runInspector } = require('3dtiles-inspector');

(async () => {
  await runInspector('./out_tiles/tileset.json');
})();

If you need to control the browser launch or manage the session lifecycle yourself:

const {
  resolveAndValidateTilesetPath,
  startInspectorSession,
} = require('3dtiles-inspector');

(async () => {
  const tilesetPath = resolveAndValidateTilesetPath('./out_tiles/tileset.json');
  const session = await startInspectorSession(tilesetPath, {
    openBrowser: false,
    handleSignals: false,
  });

  console.log(session.url);

  await session.close();
})();

Inspector Features

• Translate, Rotate, and Reset for root transform edits
• Move Camera to a WGS84 latitude / longitude / height
• Move Tiles to relocate the tileset root with an ENU-aligned transform
• Set Position to click the globe, terrain, or loaded tiles and place the tileset there
• Terrain to toggle Cesium World Terrain while keeping satellite imagery
• Geometric Error scaling from 1/16x to 16x
• Layer Multiplier scaling from 1/8x to 8x for each tile's geometric-error difference from the tileset's global leaf baseline
• Save to persist the updated root transform and geometric-error scale back to disk

If build_summary.json exists next to the root tileset, Save also updates:

• root_transform
• root_transform_source
• root_coordinate
• viewer_geometric_error_scale
• viewer_geometric_error_layer_scale

Package Surface

• src/index.js exports the public Node API
• src/cli.js implements the standalone CLI
• src/viewer/session.js manages the local server, temporary assets, browser launch, and save handling
• src/viewer/app.js contains the browser runtime source
• dist/inspector-assets/viewer/ contains the generated browser bundle and local decoder assets built by npm run build:viewer
• src/viewer/cameraController.js contains the vendored camera controller used by the runtime

Development

npm install
npm test
npm run pack:check

Error Handling

Runtime and validation failures throw InspectorError from the Node API and print a concise error message in the CLI.