Modeling a teapot is the traditional 3D equivalent of displaying Hello World. Computer graphics researcher Martin Newell first created the Newell Teapot in 1975 as a basic test model for his work. The Newell Teapot soon became the standard model to quickly check if a 3D rendering system was working correctly (it even appeared in Toy Story and a 3D episode of The Simpsons).

Other models are available in the pi3dmodels directory (monkey.obj/mdl, which has been used later on, is available in the book's resource files).