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Jun 25, 2026

IIIF 3D Manifests

Heratio publishes an IIIF Presentation 3 manifest for each public 3D model, so the model and its annotations can be shared with and consumed by IIIF-aware tools.

Where it is

/iiif/3d/{model-id}/manifest.json (linked from the 3D model page). The URL is served by Heratio (not the image server).

What it contains

Aligned to the IIIF 3D Technical Specification (release-candidate, folding into IIIF v4):

  • A Manifest with one Canvas that carries a depth axis alongside width/height (a 3D coordinate space). Canvas extents come from the model's bounding box.
  • A painting annotation whose body is a Model content resource (the glTF/GLB), plus a PerspectiveCamera and an AmbientLight.
  • Hotspots are exposed as annotations targeting the canvas through a PointSelector (x, y, z).
  • Descriptive metadata (format, dimensions, vertices/faces, compression, capture method, author) drawn from the model's technical metadata, and the model licence mapped to a rights statement where applicable.

Viewer

On a record page the 3D viewer consumes this manifest: it applies the camera field-of-view and renders the hotspots from the PointSelector annotations.

Note

The IIIF 3D specification is still at release-candidate stage; property names may change as it finalises, at which point the manifest will be revised.

References

  • Source: packages/ahg-3d-model/ (Iiif3dManifestBuilder)
  • Issue: GH #1180