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PLY viewer
Check a 3D scan or a PLY mesh in seconds. Point clouds show as dots, meshes as solid shapes.
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Good to know
Turning a scan into a print
- If it's a point cloud, mesh it first in your scanning app (it's often called meshing or reconstruction).
- Cut away the floor, the table and stray bits. Scans pick up everything around the object.
- Close the holes. The underside of a scanned object is usually missing; our STL repair tool closes small gaps.
- Check the size. Scans can come in metres or in no clear unit. Open the PLY in the STL editor, set the real height and save it as STL.
About PLY files
PLY comes out of 3D scanners and photogrammetry apps. It can hold a mesh or just a cloud of points, often with a colour for each point.
Colours in the file show up here. A point cloud (dots, no faces) has to be turned into a mesh in your scanning app before it can be printed.
How it works
- 1Drop a PLY file in the box.
- 2Drag to spin it. Scroll or pinch to zoom. Right-drag to pan.
- 3Read the size, triangle count and whether it's watertight in the panel.
Questions people ask
Checked October 2026
- Do my files get uploaded?
- No. Everything runs in your browser. The file never leaves your computer, so it works for client files and unreleased designs too.
- Can I print a PLY?
- If it's a mesh, yes. Most slicers don't open PLY, so convert it with our STL tools first. A point cloud (dots only) has to be meshed in a scanning app.
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