How to View Sauropelta in 3D
Sauropelta 3D Viewer runs an Early Cretaceous North American nodosaurid - length about 5.2-6 m (panel 5.5 m), mass about 1.5-2 tonnes (panel 1750 kg). Drag, zoom, toggle a 1.8 m person, and click a body region.
Open the Sauropelta page and take the camera
Open the Sauropelta 3D Viewer and wait for the facts panel to fill. When the status line says you can drag, orbit Sauropelta with the pointer and zoom with the scroll wheel or a two-finger pinch. Fullscreen expands the wrapper so the controls stay visible beside the scene. After first paint a license-clean CC-BY-SA 4.0 glTF may swap in automatically from the CDN; if that load fails the page stays on the procedural ankylosaur silhouette with zero regression.
Use the four Sauropelta controls under the canvas
Under the Sauropelta canvas, four controls handle view and scale:
- Fullscreen - fills the display while keeping the buttons visible
- Stop rotation / Auto-rotate - freezes or resumes auto-spin
- Idle motion - adds subtle body sway; tap again for Stand still
- Size vs human - shows a 1.8 m person at the honest panel length ratio used by the viewer (5.5 m within the about 5.2-6 m published range)
Read the Sauropelta facts panel and click a body part
The Sauropelta facts panel lists length about 5.2-6 m (panel baseline 5.5 m), hip height about 1.5 m (panel baseline), mass about 1.5-2 tonnes (panel baseline 1750 kg), the Early Cretaceous Aptian-Albian window about 110-108 million years ago in the Cloverly Formation of Wyoming and Montana, herbivore diet, and naming from John Ostrom in 1970 (earlier material collected by Barnum Brown in the 1930s). Nodosaurids lack the bony tail club of ankylosaurids; defense includes body armor and large neck spines. A short click - not a drag - on a body region surfaces a short fossil fact. Soft-tissue color is an artistic reconstruction. When the CC-BY-SA 4.0 glTF by seth the yutyrannus via Printables loads, the status text notes a real model with that credit - a stylized reconstruction, not a laser scan. This model is not a fossil-accurate skeleton.
What the Sauropelta how-to guide is not
The Sauropelta how-to guide is a controls walkthrough for the in-browser viewer only - it does not place the model in your room (no AR), does not invent a single length outside the published 5.2-6 m range, does not invent a tail club, does not invent soft-tissue color accuracy, does not invent game score or win states, and does not claim the optional glTF is a scientifically exact reconstruction. For the size story see Sauropelta size comparison. For trade-offs versus phone AR apps see Sauropelta 3D viewer vs AR apps.
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