DAE to OBJ converter — the mesh, at its real size
VTubeMe's DAE to OBJ converter writes a Collada .dae as an OBJ with its .mtl and textures, zipped. The declared unit is applied to the vertices; the skeleton cannot come along. Free, five conversions a day, up to 50 MB.
How do I convert a DAE (Collada) file to OBJ?
Zip the .dae with its textures, drop the zip on this page and download a zip holding the .obj, its .mtl and the images.
- 1Zip the folder that holds the .dae and its images and drop the .zip into the box above (a lone .dae converts untextured). Up to 50 MB; sign in when prompted.
- 2The file is opened with Blender's Collada reader on our server and written as an OBJ. The declared unit and up axis are baked into the vertices, and a skinned mesh is written in the pose its skeleton holds.
- 3Download the zip and keep its files together — the .obj finds the .mtl, and the .mtl the images, by name.
- Accepts:
- a .dae, or a .zip of the .dae with its textures, up to 50 MB.
- Returns:
- a zip: the .obj, its .mtl and a copy of each texture.
- Costs:
- nothing, and no credits — an account, though: five conversions per account per rolling 24 hours, shared across all the free format pairs. Conversions that fail are not counted.
- Measured:
- 10 materials, 8 images and 16,867 triangles in, the same out; 73 bones and 118 shape keys in, none out.
- OBJ has no skeleton, skin weights, shape keys or animation — the format has nowhere to put them.
- A .dae uploaded without its textures gives an .mtl that names images which are not in the zip.
What actually happens to the file
OBJ is the format every 3D program reads, and Collada is one that fewer read every year. Converting an old .dae to OBJ is the way to keep a static model usable.
Size is handled for you. OBJ has no unit and no transforms, so the unit a Collada file declares is multiplied into the vertices: a cube 100 units wide in a centimetre file is written as 1.0 wide. Our test character came out 1.81 units tall, which is its height in metres.
The rig does not survive, because OBJ cannot hold one: 73 bones and 118 shape keys in, zero out, with all 10 materials, all 8 textures and all 16,867 triangles intact.
What this conversion cannot do
Measured on real files, not assumed. Everything below is a property of the formats or of the pipeline, and knowing it beforehand is cheaper than discovering it in your 3D tool.
No rig, no shape keys — the format has no place for them
Measured: 73 bones and 118 shape keys in, none out. If the skeleton matters, convert the .dae to GLB or FBX instead; both keep it.
Textures only arrive if they come with the file
A .dae names its images by path and does not contain them. Uploaded alone, it converts to the right shape with the right materials and no pictures. Zip the folder that holds the .dae and its textures and upload the .zip: the test file went in as a .dae with eight images beside it and all eight arrived. A .dae that names an image by an absolute path of any operating system (C:\Users\... included), by a path written with backslashes, by a file:// or web address, or by a path leading out of the uploaded folder, or that pulls in another Collada document, is refused outright — re-export it as one document with relative texture paths written with forward slashes.
The rig was measured on a DAE written by Blender
The rigged file we measured was our own DAE output fed back in — 73 bones, 10 skinned meshes and 118 shape keys in, the same out. That proves the reader and the writer agree with each other, not that every exporter's Collada is read correctly. Files from SketchUp, older Maya and 3ds Max plug-ins or game rippers vary a great deal; open the result in a viewer before relying on it. Collada's importer also stops on XML it cannot parse rather than repairing it.
Uploads stop at 50 MB
This pair takes files up to 50 MB — half of what the GLB, FBX and OBJ pairs take among themselves, because dense scans and print files cost the converter far more memory per megabyte than a game character does. For scale: a binary STL of 50 MB is about a million triangles, and we converted one of 999,698. If your file is larger, decimate it first; MeshLab and Blender both do that without changing the format.
Five conversions a day, per account
This pair is free and takes no credits, but one account gets five conversions per rolling 24 hours across all the free format pairs together — the converter is one machine and this is what keeps it answering. Each slot frees itself 24 hours after it was used; nothing expires at midnight. Conversions that fail are not counted.
Frequently asked questions
Does DAE to OBJ keep the skeleton?
No. OBJ stores vertices, UVs, normals, faces and material names and nothing that moves. A rigged Collada model arrives as a statue in the pose it was in. Convert to GLB if the rig has to survive. DAE to GLB instead (rig kept) →
Why is the download a zip?
A textured OBJ is three or more files — the .obj, the .mtl it names and the images the .mtl names. The test character came out as ten files. They have to stay in one folder to open in colour.
Will the model keep its real size?
Yes — unlike STL or PLY, a Collada file states its unit and its up axis, and both are honoured. A test cube 100 units wide in a file declaring centimetres and Y-up came out one metre wide and upright. The conversion is applied as a scale on the object, so the vertex numbers inside a GLB or FBX are still 100 with a 0.01 scale above them; the OBJ, which has no transforms, holds 1.0.
Can I open the .dae without converting it?
Yes — the DAE viewer runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Open the DAE viewer →
The other format pairs
All 30 are free, all run the same pipeline, and all say what they drop.
GLB to OBJ
GLB in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
FBX to OBJ
FBX in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
OBJ to GLB
OBJ in, GLB out — free, one file.
STL to OBJ
STL in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
PLY to OBJ
PLY in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
DAE to GLB
DAE in, GLB out — free, one file.
DAE to FBX
DAE in, FBX out — free, one file.
USDZ to OBJ
USDZ in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
OBJ to STL
OBJ in, STL out — free, one file.
OBJ to PLY
OBJ in, PLY out — free, one file.
OBJ to DAE
OBJ in, DAE out — free, zipped with its textures.
OBJ to USDZ
OBJ in, USDZ out — free, one file.
GLB to DAE
GLB in, DAE out — free, zipped with its textures.
FBX to DAE
FBX in, DAE out — free, zipped with its textures.
Only want to look at the file? GLB viewer, FBX viewer and OBJ viewer all run on your own device — nothing is uploaded.
Is your model going into VTubing?
If the model is a rigged character and it is headed for VTubing, none of these containers is the destination — VSeeFace, Warudo and VNyan load VRM. The VRM converter takes the same rigged FBX or GLB, maps its skeleton onto the VRM humanoid and converts the materials.
Open the VRM converter