What does a million dollars actually look like? I built a 3D tool to find out.

Source: Dev.to

The question

A few months ago, my co‑founder Moris asked me a question I couldn’t answer: “If someone handed you a million dollars right now, how much space would it actually take up?”

We realized that most “money” tools on the internet are just tables of numbers. Numbers are great for spreadsheets, but they’re terrible at showing scale. You can’t truly feel the difference between $10,000 and $100,000 until you see the physical volume.

Money Visualiser

We spent the last few months building Money Visualiser, a WebGL (WebGPU in progress) sandbox where you type in an amount, pick two currencies, and watch the money materialise as 3D bill stacks. We pulled the exact dimensions for 82 different banknotes from central‑bank specifications, so a stack of Japanese yen looks wider and taller than a stack of US dollars—just like in real life.

How it works

• Stacking logic – We use bank‑standard “straps” and “bricks” so the stacking behaves exactly like how money is stored in vaults.
• Scale – The environment includes an “Aircraft Carrier” scene that’s large enough to display what a trillion dollars looks like without clipping through the walls.

Technical details

• Framework – Next.js 16 (App Router) with Three.js and React‑Three‑Fiber.
• Physics – Custom stacking algorithm based on real‑world banknote handling.
• Performance – Rendering 300 k+ individual bills at 60 fps.
• Live data – Exchange rates refresh every 30 seconds using a 5‑tier fallback system.

Live demo

Check it out at moneyvisualiser.com. No signup, no catch—just a project to make abstract numbers feel a bit more real. I’d love to hear what other developers think about the Drei/R3F setup we used.