Turning Mermaid ER diagrams into shareable 3D schema tours

Shane Jacobeen — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 03:45:20 +0000

Turning Mermaid ER diagrams into shareable 3D schema tours

Mermaid erDiagram is great for docs and PRs. It’s less great when the schema gets dense: boxes overlap, FK lines tangle, and “just zoom out” stops helping.

I built Schema3D for that moment: open a Mermaid ER (or SQL / DrawDB) in the browser, explore it in 3D, and share a URL that recreates the view. No live database connection, no account.

Why 3D helps (sometimes)

2D ERDs optimize for printing and README screenshots. Relationship-heavy schemas optimize for navigation: which tables hang off users, what’s optional vs required, where the junction tables sit. In Schema3D, you can orbit, switch layouts, search, and filter to walk a schema when the 2D version has become spaghetti.

Try a sample, not a tutorial dump

The app ships with sample schemas (including Mermaid). Open schema3d.com, pick one, and poke at the graph. Bring your own Mermaid or SQL when you want; the demos are there so you don’t have to.

Share the view, not a screenshot

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.

DEV Community: Shane Jacobeen

Turning Mermaid ER diagrams into shareable 3D schema tours