Drop a .ply file below to open it instantly. Sculpty's free PLY viewer parses the file locally in your browser with three.js — binary or ASCII, with vertex colors when the scan has them — so you can inspect a photogrammetry or scanner result without opening MeshLab.
Both encodings of the Stanford polygon format open the same way — the parser detects the flavor automatically.
Scans from photogrammetry and structured-light scanners often store color per vertex. When present, the viewer displays it.
The file is parsed in browser memory and never uploaded — safe for client scans and unpublished captures.
For a quick "did the scan come out right" check, the browser replaces a desktop mesh-processing suite.
Drag the .ply file into the drop zone above, or click to browse your computer.
Orbit, pan and zoom to check coverage, holes and surface quality — with vertex colors if the file has them.
Ready to print or publish? Use the free PLY to STL or PLY to GLB converters linked below.
PLY (the Stanford polygon format) was designed to store 3D scan data: vertices, faces, and per-vertex properties like color, normals and confidence. It is the default or preferred output of many photogrammetry tools, structured-light scanners and research pipelines, and the native language of processing software like MeshLab and CloudCompare. Compared to STL it can carry color; compared to OBJ it keeps everything in one file.
A PLY can contain a triangulated mesh (vertices plus faces) or a raw point cloud (vertices only). This viewer is built for meshes — the usual output after your scan software reconstructs a surface. If your file is a points-only capture, reconstruct a mesh first (for example with Poisson reconstruction in MeshLab or CloudCompare) and view the result here.
Yes — free and unlimited, no signup, no watermark. It is one of Sculpty's free tools alongside the AI text-to-3D studio.
No. The PLY is read with the browser's File API and rendered locally with three.js. It never leaves your machine.
Yes. When the PLY stores per-vertex color — as most photogrammetry exports do — the viewer renders it on the mesh.
It is probably a points-only file with no faces. The viewer renders triangle meshes; run a surface reconstruction in your scan software first, then open the meshed result.
Yes — the free PLY to STL, PLY to OBJ and PLY to GLB converters linked below run in the browser too.
Type a prompt, get a textured 3D model in about a minute — then download it as GLB, STL, OBJ, FBX or USDZ.
Generate a model from text →