Modly: turn a photo into a 3D model locally, entirely on your own GPU

Photo-to-3D online services are convenient until you read the terms: your photos upload to someone’s cloud and every generation bills. Modly by Lightning Pixel (8,567 stars as of November 6, 2026) is the local alternative — an open desktop app that turns a photo or a prompt into a 3D mesh using open AI models running entirely on your own GPU. Nothing leaves your machine and there is no per-generation bill. Windows, Linux and Apple Silicon macOS are covered, and an extension system keeps the model menu current: Hunyuan3D 2 Mini in standard, Turbo and Fast variants, TripoSG and Trellis2 GGUF, each tuned for a different speed, quality or VRAM trade.

Core features

• Local photo-to-3D: open models run inference on your machine; one photo in, a 3D mesh out.
• Prompt-to-3D too: generate directly from a text prompt when there is no photo.
• Extension system for models: Hunyuan3D 2 Mini (with Turbo and Fast variants), TripoSG and Trellis2 GGUF plug in as extensions — swapping models never touches the main app.
• CLI and workflows: beyond the desktop GUI, Modly CLI scripts batch generation.
• Three platforms: Windows, Linux and Apple Silicon macOS; alternatively clone the repo and run the launch scripts.

Typical use cases

• Game and 3D-print prototyping: turn a real object’s photo into an editable, printable mesh draft.
• E-commerce assets: batch-convert product photos into 3D showcase assets without uploading them.
• Offline environments: no network needed; the whole generation stays local.

Quick start

Download the installer for your platform from GitHub Releases (Windows/Linux/Apple Silicon macOS), or clone and run launch.bat/./launch.sh. Install the extension for the open model you want and start generating. The model menu matters: Hunyuan3D 2 Mini ships standard, Turbo and Fast variants for speed-versus-quality trades, while TripoSG and Trellis2 GGUF cover different styles and VRAM budgets — all inference stays local, with no service to call. Note the license: the repo carries no standard open-source license (NOASSERTION), so read LICENSE terms before commercial use.

Summary

Modly fits individual creators with a local GPU who care about asset privacy and long-term cost; machines without a discrete GPU and workflows centered on online collaboration are not the audience. Facts and limits: NOASSERTION license (read before commercial use), output quality depends on the chosen open model — Hunyuan3D, TripoSG and Trellis2 each have strengths — and the desktop app itself is free. It sits next to 3d-model-anything from this site: that one rebuilds rooms from iPhone LiDAR scans, Modly generates single objects from photos — both trade cloud services for local compute.