See the whole cave
before you swim it.

Built for scans too big to open anywhere else

A multi-gigabyte cave scan will choke most viewers. CaveViewer splits the model into a 3D grid of spatial chunks and only keeps the chunks near your current position loaded — so frame rate stays smooth no matter how large the full system is.

Navigation

Fly through it like you're really there

Free-fly camera with WASD movement, mouse look, vertical movement, and a speed boost — built for covering long passages quickly, then slowing down where it matters.

Lighting

Headlamp, plus an ambient fill when you need it

Adjustable headlamp brightness for the cone in front of you, and a separate global ambient light to wash out shadows across the whole cave when you want to see everything at once.

Orientation

A minimap that knows where the passage actually is

Click anywhere on the minimap to jump there instantly — it lands you inside the actual passage near your current depth, not floating in empty rock.

Inspection

Mesh, texture, or both

Toggle wireframe to inspect scan density and quality, toggle photo texture on or off, or run both together to see the triangulation laid over the real surface.

Shading

Smooth by default, flat when you need the facets

Maps import with smooth shading applied automatically, and a live SHADE button lets you flip to flat shading instantly to inspect the raw triangulation — no reimport required.

Multiple maps

Switch caves without closing the program

Open a different map mid-session with one click. First-time imports show real progress in-window; maps you've opened before load instantly from a local cache.

Always current

Check for updates from the launch screen

One click checks for a newer version and installs it automatically — no separate downloads to track down by hand.

Bring your own scan

CaveViewer reads the formats survey and photogrammetry software actually export. Drop in a folder, and it figures out the rest.

Everything you need is one column, one corner

Every adjustable control — headlamp, global light, render distance, mesh, texture, and shading toggles, the background color picker, switching maps — lives in a single column anchored to the bottom-right corner. A live readout above the minimap shows your current frame rate and how many chunks are loaded, in real time.

Forget a key? Click HELP anytime to bring this back up — it lists every control in one place.

Install

A one-click installer handles Python and every dependency for you. No prior setup required.

1. Download the latest release

   Grab the zip from the Releases page and extract it anywhere.

2. Run the setup script

   Double-click Launch_Setup.bat inside the setup folder, then click Install. It installs Python (if needed) and every required package automatically.

3. Launch CaveViewer

   Use the new desktop shortcut, or run python caveviewer.py from the project folder. Either way, you'll land on the launch screen with a Browse button.

4. Point it at your map

   Select the folder containing your .obj+.mtl or .glb file. First time opening a new map, it imports and caches it once — every open after that is instant.

What you see on launch — click Browse and pick your map folder, or try Sample Maps if you don't have one.

First time opening a new map only — every open after this is instant.

No scan of your own yet? Borrow one of ours

The launch screen has a Sample Maps... button right below Browse. Pick a cave, confirm the download size, and CaveViewer fetches and extracts it automatically — no manual unzipping, no hunting for the right folder.

Once a map's downloaded, its button switches to Open — it's saved locally, so picking it again later never needs the internet.

Confirms the size before anything downloads.

A real progress bar, not a frozen-looking window.

Once downloaded, it hands straight off to the same one-time import process any brand-new map goes through — after that, opening it again is instant.

Built by people who use it

CaveViewer started as a way to actually look at the survey data from real dives, not just collect it.