Turning Mermaid ER diagrams into shareable 3D schema tours

Description and use

Schema3D turns dense Mermaid ER diagrams into interactive 3D tours, enabling easy navigation and sharing of the exact view via a URL hash without database access.

Problem

Dense 2D ER diagrams become unreadable as tables overlap and foreign‑key lines tangle, making it hard to navigate complex schemas in documentation or PRs.

Outcome

Schema3D transforms dense Mermaid ER diagrams into navigable 3D tours, enabling clear exploration and easy sharing of the exact view via a URL hash, eliminating the need for screenshots or database access.

Workflow

• Open schema3d.com in a browser
• Select a sample schema or paste your own Mermaid/SQL
• Interact with the 3D graph (orbit, change layout, search, filter)
• Use the share link to send the exact view to a colleague

Evidence

Schema3D encodes the schema (and optional view state) into a compressed URL hash (similar in spirit to mermaid.live’s links). Send a colleague a link that opens the same graph without exporting PNG/PDF or granting DB credentials.

Source