Browser-local converter
PLY to STL converter
Convert a Stanford PLY into an STL locally. ASCII, binary little-endian and binary big-endian are all read, which matters because scanner software disagrees about which to write.
Drop your PLY files here
STL, OBJ, PLY, GLB, glTF, 3MF and SVG. Nothing is uploaded: files are read and converted inside this tab. Checking what this device can handle...
Queue
No files yet. Drop models above, or use the file picker.
Output
Units
Size and placement
Repair and cleanup
These can change the shape, so they need a before-and-after review before export.
Inspection
Add a model to see its dimensions, mesh health and estimated volume.
What this PLY to STL conversion does and does not do
- Per-vertex colour, which many scanners write, is dropped: STL stores geometry only. The workspace tells you when colour was present.
- PLY records no unit, and neither does STL, so coordinates are copied across unchanged.
- A PLY containing only points and no faces cannot be converted. Surface reconstruction from a point cloud is a modelling operation that invents geometry, and this site will not do that silently.
- Polygonal faces with more than three corners are split with a triangle fan.
- Custom PLY properties beyond position, normal, uv and colour are read past and ignored.
Troubleshooting
The file is rejected as having no faces
It is probably a point cloud. You need to run surface reconstruction in scanning or mesh software first; there is no faithful automatic conversion from points to a printable surface.
The mesh is full of holes
Scan data usually is. The inspection panel counts the open edges and separate shells. Safe repair cleans up duplicates, degenerate triangles and winding, but will not fill holes, because that would be inventing surface you did not scan.
The scan is enormous and slow
Scanner meshes are frequently in the millions of triangles. The workspace refuses a mesh before allocating if it will not fit in memory, and uses a smaller budget on phones.
Questions
Which PLY variants are supported?
ASCII, binary little-endian and binary big-endian, with arbitrary property ordering and the full set of scalar types. The header is parsed properly rather than pattern-matched, so unusual exporters still work.
Will my scan colours survive?
Not into STL, which has no colour channel. Convert to GLB or 3MF if colour matters, though per-vertex colour is still not carried through as vertex colour today.
Is the vertex count preserved?
The triangle count is preserved exactly and verified. Vertex counts differ by design, because STL repeats a vertex for every triangle that touches it.