Find a ready-made 3D asset

three.ws publishes three asset libraries and joins them into one searchable catalog:

Kind	What it is	How many
object	CC0 props and objects (furniture, lighting, tools, electronics, decor) staged as web GLB	511
character	Ready-made rigged humanoids, animation-ready out of the box	107
animation	Retargetable motion clips as THREE.AnimationClip JSON	2,874

Everything here is free and public: no account, no API key, no payment, no rate card.

Check the catalog before you generate

Generating a model takes GPU minutes and returns something nobody has reviewed. The catalog returns a finished, textured asset instantly. So the order is:

1. Search the catalog. If something fits, use it. Done.
2. Nothing fits, and it is a prop or object? Use generate-3d-model.
3. Nothing fits, and it is a character? Use create-3d-avatar.

Say which one you did. "I found an existing CC0 chair" and "I generated a chair" are different answers and the user should know which they got.

The fastest path: MCP tools

If the three.ws MCP server is connected, three free tools cover the whole flow:

Tool	Use
search_catalog	Find assets by text, kind, category, or tag
get_catalog_item	One item in full, with links and related items
get_item_source	Paste-ready code for one item

search_catalog { "q": "wooden chair", "kind": "object", "limit": 5 }
get_item_source { "id": "object:painted_wooden_chair_01" }

Not connected? Add it:

{ "mcpServers": { "three-ws": { "type": "http", "url": "https://three.ws/api/mcp" } } }

Without MCP: the HTTP endpoint

curl -s 'https://three.ws/api/catalog?q=industrial+lamp&kind=object&limit=5'
curl -s 'https://three.ws/api/catalog?id=object:painted_wooden_chair_01'

The search form returns items[] with id, title, tags, license, url (the CDN GLB or clip JSON), thumb, and facets you can use to narrow the next query. The id form adds links, related, and snippets for every framework that applies.

Search semantics worth knowing: every word must match something, which keeps a two-word query precise. If nothing matches all of them, the response comes back with relaxed: true and the partial matches, best first. Check that flag before telling a user you found an exact match.

Putting it in a project: the CLI

npx @three-ws/assets search wooden chair --kind object
npx @three-ws/assets add object:painted_wooden_chair_01

add downloads the GLB into public/three-ws/ (or three-ws-assets/ when the project has no public/ directory) and prints the snippet already rewritten to the local path, so the host site does not depend on the three.ws CDN staying up.

It is safe to re-run: identical bytes report as already up to date, and a file edited after it was added is never overwritten without --force.

Useful flags: --dir <path>, --framework <f>, --thumb, --json.

Which framework to emit

get_item_source (and show/add in the CLI) default to the right one per kind. Override with framework only when the project dictates it.

Framework	Emits	Default for
model-viewer	The <model-viewer> tag, build, and integrity hash the three.ws browse grids render with	props
agent-3d	The <agent-3d> web component, pinned to the exact published version with its SRI hash	rigged characters
three	Plain three.js: GLTFLoader for a model, THREE.AnimationClip.parse for a clip	motion clips
react	The same as a React component, or a hook for a clip	React projects
all	Every applicable variant in one response	when you are choosing

The agent-3d snippet is never pinned to latest, because latest can change under the reader with no action on their side. Keep the version and the integrity attribute intact when you paste it.

Worked example

User: "put a chair on the landing page"

search_catalog { "q": "wooden chair", "kind": "object", "limit": 3 }

10 matches for "wooden chair" (showing 3 from offset 0):
- `object:painted_wooden_chair_01` | Painted Wooden Chair 01 | CC0 | chair, wood, painted
- `object:painted_wooden_chair_02` | Painted Wooden Chair 02 | CC0 | old, wooden, vintage
- `object:WoodenChair_01` | Wooden Chair 01 | CC0 | wood, prop, vintage

get_item_source { "id": "object:painted_wooden_chair_01" }

Returns the <model-viewer> block to paste, the preview link, and the license (CC0). Paste it, tell the user which asset you used and that it is public domain, and link the preview so they can look at it before shipping.

Licensing

Every object in the library is CC0: public domain, commercial use fine, no attribution required. Characters and clips carry their own license field, which travels with every response. Read it and pass it on; do not assume CC0 outside the object library.

Related skills

• generate-3d-model when the catalog has no match for a prop.
• create-3d-avatar when the catalog has no match for a character.
• embed-three-ws-avatar for the full <agent-3d> embedding story, including moods, animations, and driving the avatar from page code.
• rig-a-model to add a skeleton to a static GLB you already have.