Comparison of Qt 3D and Qt 3D Studio

In short, Qt 3D Studio is built on top of Qt 3D. The flexible architecture of Qt 3D makes it suitable to build 3D runtimes, or engines, such as Qt 3D Studio.

Qt 3D

Qt 3D is programmer-oriented and great for both simple and complex scenes. Qt 3D simplifies the implementation of advanced rendering techniques.

Qt 3D Studio

Qt 3D Studio consists of both a 3D editor and a 3D runtime. Qt 3D Studio is designer-oriented and makes it easy to build complex 3D scenes that can be used in Qt applications.

Use case comparison

Whether you should use Qt 3D or Qt 3D Studio for your project depends on your use case. Below, we list some common use cases and how they apply to the two:

Creating 3D scenes

Use case	Qt 3D	Qt 3D Studio
Graphically editing a 3D scene for use in a Qt application	No built-in editor. Support for importing common 3D formats.	Yes, use the Qt 3D Studio Editor
Creating a 3D scene programmatically	Suitable	Not possible
Using existing materials and effects	Some available in Qt3D.Extras	Many available in the Qt 3D Studio Editor

Effects

Use case	Qt 3D	Qt 3D Studio
Creating a simple multi-pass rendering pipeline	Suitable	Suitable
Using custom shaders	Suitable	Suitable
Layer-based compositing	Suitable	Suitable
Implementing custom rendering techniques such as volumetric rendering	Suitable	Not suitable

Formats

Use case	Qt 3D	Qt 3D Studio
Importing external formats	All formats supported by plugins such as Assimp. See SceneLoader for a full list.	A number of formats are supported. TODO: List all formats.

Creating 3D engines and editors

Use case	Qt 3D	Qt 3D Studio
Creating a custom graphical 3D editor	Suitable	Not possible
Creating a custom 3D engine	Suitable	Not possible