3D & CAD

Files that describe shapes in three dimensions: polygon meshes, whole scenes with materials and animation, the saved work of modelling programs, engineering drawings, models prepared for 3D printing, scanned point clouds and the models used in games.

Groups

Meshes

Surfaces made of vertices and polygons, with little else.

3 formats

Scenes

Whole scenes for exchange between programs: meshes, materials, cameras and animation.

2 formats

Modelling projects

The native save files of 3D modelling programs.

2 formats

CAD

Precise drawings and solid models for engineering and architecture.

3 formats

3D printing

Models packaged for printing, and the machine instructions a printer follows.

2 formats

Point clouds

Millions of measured points from laser scanners and surveys.

1 format

Game models

Models stored in the form a particular game engine loads.

1 format

All 3D and CAD formats

Format	Name	About
Meshes
`.OBJ`	Wavefront OBJ	A plain text mesh of vertices, normals and faces, read by almost every 3D program.
`.PLY`	Polygon File Format	Stanford’s mesh and point cloud format, with a header that declares every property.
`.STL`	Stereolithography	A surface of triangles and nothing else, the standard input for 3D printing.
Scenes
`.FBX`	Autodesk Filmbox	Autodesk’s scene exchange format for models, skeletons and animation.
`.GLTF`	GL Transmission Format	Khronos’ open format for 3D scenes, as JSON with buffers or as one binary .glb.
Modelling projects
`.BLEND`	Blender file	Blender’s saved memory, in file blocks described by the SDNA they carry.
`.SKP`	SketchUp model	SketchUp’s native model file, read by other programs through Trimble’s SDK.
CAD
`.DWG`	AutoCAD drawing	AutoCAD’s native drawing, versioned by a six-character string at the start.
`.DXF`	Drawing Exchange Format	Autodesk’s documented exchange format, pairs of group codes and values.
`.STEP`	STEP product model	The ISO 10303 standard for exact solid models, the neutral format between CAD systems.
3D printing
`.3MF`	3D Manufacturing Format	A ZIP package of XML models with units, colours and print settings.
`.GCODE`	G-code	Line by line machine commands a slicer writes for one particular printer.
Point clouds
`.LAS`	LAS lidar point cloud	The ASPRS standard for lidar points, with returns, intensity and classification.
Game models
`.MD3`	Quake III Arena model	id Software’s model format, animated frame by frame and joined at named tags.