A free exchange of 3D objects that you can browse as easily as Flickr has just launched in beta. 3dvia's official mission is "democratizing the usage of 3D so that everybody can use it in its everyday life, either at work or at home, through the web. Our objective is to give you the power of 3D." The starting library has vehicles, buildings, and even an iPhone.
Of course, it's not just a big directory of downloadable files. In the 3D Experiences section an implementation of Virtools allows you to play with the 3D objects right in your browser, and even interact with some larger builds. They've invited community participation, and we can expect the library to see some rapid growth. It will be interesting to watch what innovative ideas people come up with for "experiences" over the coming months.
Both 3dvia and Virtools are owned by the French firm Dassault Systèmes.
Perhaps I've missed something, but it seems like they've just rebranded Teapotters.com (which now redirects to 3dvia.com), added some "coming soon" pages and called that a press release. Though it had a neat concept, Teapotters.com was online for a good while and saw limited uptake so let's hope for their sake that they have more up their sleeves than a new name.
3D viewers for OS X and linux would be a good start, but since Dassault Systems makes Windows-only tools it seems unlikely.
Yeh i cant say i was too impressed when i got to the site Trevor. I hope they have some more too....