OBJ to USDZ converter — a static model into iPhone AR
VTubeMe's OBJ to USDZ converter packs a zipped .obj, its .mtl and its textures into one .usdz for AR Quick Look on iPhone and iPad: Y-up, UsdPreviewSurface materials, textures inside. Free, five a day, up to 50 MB. Not tested on a device.
How do I convert an OBJ to USDZ?
Zip the .obj with its .mtl and textures, drop the zip on this page and download one .usdz.
- 1Zip the folder that holds the .obj, its .mtl and the images, and drop the .zip into the box above (a bare .obj converts without colour). Up to 50 MB; sign in when prompted.
- 2The folder is opened in Blender on our server and written with its USD exporter as a .usdz: Y-up, UsdPreviewSurface materials, every texture inside the package.
- 3Download the .usdz and open it in AR Quick Look on an iPhone or iPad to confirm it.
- Accepts:
- an .obj, or a .zip of the .obj with its .mtl and textures; up to 50 MB.
- Returns:
- one .usdz. Never a loose .usd, .usda or .usdc.
- 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, 15 textures and 16,867 triangles in the 2.90 MB package; uncompressed, 64-byte aligned, Y-up; same dimensions as the OBJ.
- Not opened in AR Quick Look, on any device, by us.
- OBJ has no unit; the package says metres and keeps the OBJ's numbers, and AR shows it at that size.
- The .mtl's material model is approximated as UsdPreviewSurface.
What actually happens to the file
A product model, a scan, a piece of furniture — static things people want to place in a room — often exist as OBJ, and AR Quick Look opens USDZ. Nothing has to be invented in this direction: there is no rig in an OBJ to carry.
Scale is the thing to get right, because AR shows objects at real size. OBJ has no unit; the package declares one metre per unit and keeps the OBJ's numbers. An OBJ modelled in metres appears life-size, and one modelled in millimetres appears a thousand times too large — fix that before converting.
We could not open the result on a phone. Verified instead: an uncompressed, 64-byte-aligned package with the USD layer first, a Y-up stage with a default prim, 10 UsdPreviewSurface materials, 15 textures inside, and the same dimensions as the OBJ. Blender re-imports it with every material and texture.
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.
Checked as a package, not on a phone
We cannot open AR Quick Look here, so this was not tested on an iPhone, an iPad or a Vision Pro. What was checked on the file itself: it is an uncompressed zip with the USD layer first and every entry aligned to 64 bytes, which is what the usdz specification requires; the stage is Y-up at one metre per unit with a default prim; materials are UsdPreviewSurface; and it re-imports into Blender with its materials and textures. Try it on your own device before you ship it.
Materials become UsdPreviewSurface
That is the one material model AR Quick Look reads: base colour, metallic, roughness, normal, opacity, emission. All 10 materials and all 15 images of the sample avatar came through and are inside the package. Anything beyond that model — toon shading, glTF extensions such as transmission or clearcoat, custom node graphs — has no place in it and arrives as a plain surface.
The package is not compressed
A usdz must be a zip with no compression, so its size is the size of the textures inside it: the same avatar came to 19.1 MB with PNG textures and under 5 MB with JPEG ones. Images keep the format they arrive in. If the file is for a web page, shrink the textures before converting.
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
Will this open in AR Quick Look on an iPhone?
It is written the way Apple's viewer expects — a .usdz package, Y-up, metres, UsdPreviewSurface materials, textures inside — and we verified that structure on the file. We did not open it on a device, so we will not promise it. The usual failures on real phones are size (very large textures) and materials the preview surface cannot express, not the container.
Why is my model gigantic in AR?
Because the OBJ was not in metres. OBJ stores no unit, the package says one unit is a metre, and AR Quick Look believes it. A 200-unit chair modelled in centimetres becomes a 200-metre chair. Scale the model to metres in a 3D tool, export, and convert again.
Can I get a .usd, .usda or .usdc instead?
Not from this page. Those are single layers that reference their textures as separate files, so one download could not hold a textured model. A .usdz is the same layer with the textures packaged beside it; any USD tool will unpack it — it is a plain zip — or read it directly.
Can I inspect the USDZ without an iPhone?
Yes — the USDZ viewer opens it in your browser. It shows the contents; it is not a substitute for AR Quick Look. Open the USDZ viewer →
The other format pairs
All 30 are free, all run the same pipeline, and all say what they drop.
OBJ to GLB
OBJ in, GLB out — free, one file.
USDZ to GLB
USDZ in, GLB out — free, one file.
USDZ to FBX
USDZ in, FBX out — free, one file.
USDZ to OBJ
USDZ in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
GLB to USDZ
GLB in, USDZ out — free, one file.
FBX to USDZ
FBX in, USDZ out — free, one file.
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.
GLB to OBJ
GLB in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
FBX to OBJ
FBX in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
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 OBJ
DAE in, OBJ out — free, zipped with its materials.
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?
A scan, a print file or a CAD part is not an avatar, and no format change makes it one: a VTubing avatar needs a humanoid skeleton and a face that moves. If what you have is a rigged character in FBX or GLB, the VRM converter maps its bones onto the VRM humanoid and carries the materials over, ready for VSeeFace, Warudo and VNyan.
Open the VRM converter