GLB to PLY converter — geometry for MeshLab and research code
VTubeMe's GLB to PLY converter writes your .glb as one binary PLY with positions, normals and UVs — the format MeshLab, CloudCompare and Open3D read. Vertex colours are kept if the model has them. Free, five conversions a day, up to 50 MB.
How do I convert a GLB to PLY?
Drop the .glb on this page and download one binary .ply.
- 1Drop your .glb into the box above, up to 50 MB; sign in when prompted.
- 2The file is opened in Blender on our server and every mesh is written into one binary PLY: positions, normals, UVs, and vertex colours if the model has a colour layer. Z up, nothing scaled.
- 3Download the .ply and open it in MeshLab, CloudCompare or your own code.
- Accepts:
- one .glb up to 50 MB.
- Returns:
- one binary little-endian PLY, triangulated, all meshes merged.
- 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:
- 16,867 triangles in, 16,867 faces out in 0.55 MB; a GLB with vertex colours came out with red, green, blue and alpha per vertex.
- Textures are not baked into vertex colours: a textured model comes out uncoloured.
- No materials, rig or shape keys — PLY has none.
What actually happens to the file
PLY is the working format of geometry processing. If you want to measure a model, remesh it, sample a point cloud from it or feed it to research code, PLY is what the tools ask for.
The avatar we converted came out as 11,125 vertices and 16,867 faces, each vertex carrying position, normal and a UV pair, in a 0.55 MB binary file. Its 10 materials, 15 textures, 73 bones and 118 shape keys have no counterpart in PLY and are gone.
Colour depends on where the GLB keeps it. A GLB with a vertex-colour attribute keeps it — we checked with a coloured cube. A GLB coloured by textures, which is most of them, comes out without colour, because nothing here bakes an image down onto the vertices.
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.
Colour is written only if the model has vertex colours
PLY's colour is per vertex. A model that already carries a vertex-colour layer keeps it — a test cube with colours came out with red, green, blue and alpha on every vertex. A model coloured by textures, which is nearly every game character and every avatar, comes out with positions, normals and UVs and no colour: the images are not baked into the vertices, and a PLY cannot reference an image file in any way most programs honour.
No materials, no rig, one merged mesh
Measured on the sample avatar: 10 materials, 15 textures, 73 bones and 118 shape keys in, none out; ten meshes merged into one with the same 16,867 triangles. The file is binary little-endian with x, y, z, normals and the UV pair (s, t) per vertex, and it is written in the pose the skeleton holds.
Same numbers, Z up, no unit
Nothing is rescaled: a model 1.8143 units tall is 1.8143 units tall in the PLY, turned to the Z-up convention MeshLab and CloudCompare expect. PLY has no unit field, so the program that opens it decides what a unit means.
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
Why is my PLY grey when the GLB was textured?
PLY colour lives on vertices, and your model's colour lives in image files. The conversion does not bake one into the other, so only models that already have vertex colours come out coloured. To bake, use Blender (bake to vertex colours) or MeshLab (texture to vertex colour) on the original.
What is a PLY of a textured model good for?
Geometry processing: MeshLab, CloudCompare, Open3D and most research code read PLY more readily than anything else, and for measuring, remeshing, sampling points or computing distances the colour does not matter. If you need the model to look right, PLY is the wrong target — keep it as GLB.
Is the PLY ASCII or binary?
Binary little-endian, triangulated. Every PLY reader in common use takes it, and it is a fraction of the ASCII size.
Can I look at the PLY afterwards?
Yes — the PLY viewer opens it in your browser. Open the PLY viewer →
The other format pairs
All 30 are free, all run the same pipeline, and all say what they drop.
GLB to FBX
GLB in, FBX out — free, one file.
GLB to OBJ
GLB in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
PLY to GLB
PLY in, GLB out — free, one file.
PLY to FBX
PLY in, FBX out — free, one file.
PLY to OBJ
PLY in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
GLB to STL
GLB in, STL out — free, one file.
GLB to DAE
GLB in, DAE out — free, zipped with its textures.
GLB to USDZ
GLB in, USDZ out — free, one file.
FBX to PLY
FBX in, PLY out — free, one file.
OBJ to PLY
OBJ in, PLY out — free, one file.
FBX to GLB
FBX in, GLB out — free, one file.
OBJ to GLB
OBJ in, GLB out — free, one file.
STL to GLB
STL in, GLB out — free, one file.
DAE to GLB
DAE in, GLB out — free, one file.
USDZ to GLB
USDZ in, GLB out — free, one file.
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