Thangs, the new most powerful search engine for 3D models?

Physna has just announced the launch of Thangs, the world’s first geometric search engine for 3D models. Just a couple of days after its release, the platform is already deemed the most powerful online community for 3D model creators. Physna, being the industry leader in geometric deep-learning technology, wanted to “democratize” the world of 3D models and create a global index of physical objects. Hence, the company integrated its proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms into Thangs – which is free to join – in order to revolutionize the 3D printing workflow. So, what is special about Thangs?

Founded in 2015 by Paul Powers and Glenn Warner, Physna uses proprietary algorithms and advanced geometric deep-learning technology to codify 3D models into detailed data. The resulting digitized model allows Physna to show specific and precise differences and similarities between models, including incomplete models or models with different file formats. It enables the users to see all components in complex assemblies, as well as parts contained in other parts! Physna’s AI technology allows to quickly make production predictions, estimate costs, materials, and find the best suppliers. The software can predict part performance based on past data and design changes, and uncover design flaws before models are produced. The powerful technology behind the software attracted important people to join the team – this summer, Dennis DeMeyere, a former technical director at Google Cloud, and Jason Warner, GitHub’s CTO, joined the company. With such experienced people on board, Physna is planning to integrate major functionality features from these two tech giants, Google and GitHub, into its very own platform; on the 18th of August, the company has officially released its 3D model community platform, Thangs.

There is no Google for the world of 3D models, making the process of finding files rather tedious, and neither did we have a GitHub for 3D models, making version control quite complex and collaboration unintuitive. Thangs solves those problems. What Google has done in indexing 2D data such as text and images, Thangs is doing for physical objects and 3D models. The platform allows users to find parts based on their (potential) relationship to other parts. Powered by Physna’s geometric deep-learning engine, it can read and understand the “physical DNA” of objects in ways that were previously impossible. By understanding the physical structure of 3D models across a variety of file types, Thangs reveals in-depth information about 3D designs, including complex assemblies and parts within parts.