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Updated August 2026
Slicer file in. PLY out.
A minority of research tools want PLY even for print meshes. This route dumps STL triangles to binary PLY. Most print users should stay on STL.
Source STL, target PLY, drop, download.
1
Source is STL. The File API reads it in this tab. Nothing is posted. Keep it under 80 MB.
2
Binary PLY from the STL mesh.
3
Open in the research tool.
This page is only STL → PLY. Other pairs have their own keep and lose notes so they do not repeat this conversion.
| On this conversion | What happens |
|---|---|
| Keeps | Triangles in PLY. |
| Drops | Nothing STL had beyond faces. |
| Next step | The PLY-aware app. Slicers should keep STL. |
| Attribute | Result on the reference scene |
|---|---|
| Separate objects | Merged into 1 |
| UV coordinates | Kept |
| Vertex colour | Kept |
| Material names | Lost |
| Vertices on the reference scene | 48 of 48 |
| Mesh | Source | PLY | Change | Vertices written |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mug.glb | 880 KB | 1,221 KB | 1.4x | 25,000 |
| lion.glb | 8,768 KB | 12,176 KB | 1.4x | 249,369 |
STL as the source: Geometry only. Color and clips are dropped. Measured 2026-08-27 by running this converter’s own loaders and exporters headlessly. How every format was measured.
STL is parsed with the File API. PLY is written in memory. Nothing STL had beyond faces. That is a format rule, not an upload. Files over 80 MB are refused because RAM is the limit.
A minority of research tools want PLY even for print meshes. This route dumps STL triangles to binary PLY. Most print users should stay on STL.
Source STL, target PLY, drop, download. No Blender and no account.
Usually no. Stay on STL for slicers. Use this only when a named tool wants PLY.
No. STL had none to copy.
No. STL is parsed here and PLY is written in memory. There is no convert API.
Yes. Open the STL viewer if you only need to orbit. Convert when the next tool actually wants PLY.
The PLY-aware app. Slicers should keep STL.