The number of 3D models available to both students and teachers online is rapidly expanding. Not only are the 3D model collections of popular websites like Thingiverse.com growing, but organizations such as the Smithsonian Institute and NASA have also recently begun building collections of 3D models and making these openly accessible online. Yet, even with the increased interest in 3D printing, 3D scanning, and virtual reality technologies, there is still little known about the overall structure of the 3D model content available on the internet. How many 3D models are actually available? Who is responsible for producing these models? How fast is this content growing? How many of these 3D models are suitable for educational purposes in general? Based on in-depth research into the collections of more than one hundred 3D model repositories, this presentation seeks to answer these questions and more, providing a detailed picture of how 3D models exist across a multitude of websites and online repositories, and attempting to determine how much of this content is suitable for the purposes of education.
