PrintHaus: deterministic parametric buildings with GLB export and five quality settings

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Hi everyone,

Here are four buildings I designed with my browser app PrintHaus: a half-timbered house, an English manor house, a defensive tower and a factory hall. The images show the assembled GLB exports opened in CAD Viewer.

Half-timbered house
Half-timbered house1920×1080 270 KB

English manor house
English manor house1920×1080 178 KB

Defensive tower
Defensive tower1920×1080 148 KB

Factory hall
Factory hall1920×1080 205 KB

The building geometry is generated deterministically from explicit parameters, rather than by generative AI. I can change the footprint, storeys, roof, windows, doors and facade details. The interactive preview uses Three.js and React Three Fiber. The GLB export keeps the assembled building and its project colours; the separate print workflow prepares parts for a 3D printer.

For different scene requirements, the GLB export offers five settings:

  • Low Poly: simplified geometry and small textures for lightweight scenes.
  • Compact: surface relief is represented with normal maps, with compressed textures to keep the file smaller.
  • Medium: geometric surface relief on a coarser grid, with compact textures.
  • Detailed: finer geometric relief and higher-resolution textures than Medium.
  • Uncompressed: the same geometric detail as Detailed, without Draco compression and with lossless PNG textures.

Low Poly, Compact, Medium and Detailed require Draco and WebP support in the target application. Uncompressed does not require those decoders.

Free GLB sample packs

You can download these four examples from the GLB sample page. Each building has its own ZIP containing all five quality settings, so you can compare the same building at different geometry and texture settings:

A free account with a confirmed email address and sign-in are required. These sample packs do not require a paid subscription, an API add-on or export credits.

You can configure a building at PrintHaus. Free registration includes a first free export for personal use. For members of this forum, code PH-THREEJS-CCD7 provides two additional export credits for personal use and can be redeemed until 17 November 2026, 23:00 UTC.

I also printed these designs. These links lead to the printable versions, rather than direct GLB downloads:

For buildings in a Three.js scene, would you usually choose lighter meshes with normal-mapped surfaces or detailed geometric relief? I would be interested in what matters most in your workflow.