Thought I would post an update on my research relative to this topic:
There are some good products out there such as C3LEVER, Spread3D, Sketchfab and several others. However, they require me to have an internet connection. They require me to upload my models to their site and then view via the internet. I cannot always depend on an internet connection (especially at a show/conference or even at a customer side). I need to be able to view via the browser on my local machine.
In some threads, I have seen products like Hypercosim (and others) mentioned but when I tried to go their web site I get "page not found" or (in the specific case of Hypercosim they say they are no longer supporting or making their viewer available).
I have tried Light-Up and think it is good product for the right situation. I am not interesting in the lighting features (which look very good). I just want to be able to view my model in a browser environment. I also need for it to work on a touch screen with no keyboard intervention. I did get it to work but, as I have discussed with AdamB, I am not confident it is going to get me where I ultimately want to go.
I also found 3DBOP which is built on the CubicVR JavaScript. All of the online demos look like it would do exactly what I want to do. I downloaded their example zip file but have not had any success getting it to work. All I get is a blank page. I have tried various things like modifying the path name to my .dae files, changing a couple of styles, and even added some document.write statements in the JavaScript to see where it stops running (I do not get any type of error messages - just a blank page). I found some online references to CubicVR where others had a similar problem. When I tried the things other people reported, I still get the blank page.
One positive result was that I could see that I am not the only one who has the desire to view 3D models via my browser on a local machine without the internet connection.
If anyone has any additional suggestions or knows how to resolve the CubicVR issue, I would certainly be open to your suggestions. I have written some JavaScript in the past but do not consider myself a real coder in any sense.
If it helps, my environment is Win 8.1 with IE 11.096..............