I am trying to load a 3D model from a wavefront file using opengl. However, I find the if I simply follow the coordinates of each point, it will go out of the screen. I tried to solve this reducing the size of each coordinate by a fixed factor. It does solve the problem, however the proportion of the 3D model is affected. How should I go about solving this problem?

Try giving it a larger z-coordinate (by glTranslatef(0,0,+ or - something, I don't remember) and use perspective projection (using gluPerspective). This just moves the object further away from you so that it appears smaller.

Thanks, Lutz.