Convert STL 3D models to ASCII PLY locally - for MeshLab, CloudCompare and research tools. No upload.
Running locally on your device ...
Running locally on your device ...
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Your files never left your device
No. Everything runs in your browser - your file never leaves your device. How this is verifiable
STL is the standard 3D-printing format - a plain triangle shell. PLY (Polygon File Format / Stanford) is the format research tools, 3D scanners and meshing software such as MeshLab or CloudCompare prefer. This tool reads your STL - binary or ASCII - and writes a clean ASCII PLY.
Both binary and ASCII STL are recognised automatically. Because STL stores every triangle with explicit, repeated vertices, the conversion welds identical vertices into a shared pool first, then writes a PLY vertex list plus a triangle face list. The triangle count is preserved and the coordinates are carried over unchanged.
Everything runs entirely locally in the browser - your possibly confidential model never leaves your device. Honestly framed: pure geometry is transferred. STL has no colour or material to carry, so the PLY contains vertices and triangle faces only. An invalid or empty STL file is rejected with a clear message.
STL knows only bare triangles - no colours, no named parts, no texture. Accordingly the PLY here also carries pure triangle geometry; it gains no information that was never in the STL. Its advantage is simply the widely supported format, readable by research and point-cloud tools - exactly where STL reaches its limits.
| Input formats | STL |
|---|---|
| Output format | PLY |
| Batch processing | No |
| Processing | Locally in your browser (JavaScript) |
| File upload | None |
Limitations: Converts STL (binary and ASCII) to readable ASCII PLY (Stanford format): vertices are welded into a shared pool and written with a triangle face list. Pure geometry is transferred. The per-triangle normal stored in STL is discarded on read; the PLY holds only x/y/z vertices, no normal property. An invalid or empty STL file is rejected with a clear error.
Yes. The tool detects the STL type automatically and reads both variants.
Yes. STL repeats vertices per triangle; the conversion welds identical vertices into a shared pool for a clean PLY.
ASCII PLY - a readable header plus a vertex list and a triangle face list.
No, the conversion happens entirely locally in the browser; your model never leaves your device.
OBJ to PLY · PLY to STL · STL to OBJ · STL to GLB · OBJ to GLB · GLB to OBJ