3D File Formats: Quick Notes

Short, practical take on the common formats.

Verdict: glTF/GLB is the default, with a few exceptions.

• Open standard (Khronos), often called the “JPEG of 3D”
• Supports PBR materials, skeletons, animations, morph targets
• GLB packs everything (mesh, textures, animation) into a single file
• Well supported and lightweight: first choice for real-time, web, games and general exchange
• Weak spots: not meant for printing or CAD

• Old but still alive: plain-text format, very easy to read and parse
• Static mesh only, with a separate material file (.mtl)
• No bones, no vertex weights, no animation
• Still common in sculpting tools, photogrammetry output and quick mesh exchange

• Stores only triangles (plus one facet normal per triangle)
• No color, no materials, no units
• Standard for 3D printing, also seen in medical imaging
• Being replaced by 3MF for printing

• Proprietary, controlled by Autodesk
• Blender's importer/exporter is reverse-engineered and plays catch-up with format changes
• Use it only when a pipeline demands it

• Modern replacement for STL
• Carries units, colors, materials and multiple objects
• Supported by most modern slicers

• Studio / VFX pipeline format, increasingly adopted
• Built for large scenes and collaborative workflows

• CAD / engineering format
• Keeps true curved surfaces instead of triangles