PLY Viewer

Open a PLY file in your browser: a scan, a photogrammetry model, a point cloud or a mesh from a 3D program. The viewer reads ASCII and binary PLY (little-endian and big-endian) and draws meshes with their vertex colours or face colours. Every face is kept: quads and faces with five or more corners are split into triangles on their own plane, including faces with a dent in them. A PLY with points but no faces is drawn as a point cloud in its colours, with a point size you can change, and a splat file is shown as its splat centres in their base colours. The header report lists the format, every element and property, comments, how many faces have three, four or more corners and how the colours are stored. Set the units and which way is up, measure the size in millimetres and inches, and save the view as a PNG. Nothing is uploaded.

100% private — everything runs in your browser. Everything runs in your browser; your model files are never uploaded.

How to view a PLY file

1. Drop a PLY on the box, or click Try a sample (or Try a point cloud).
2. Orbit with a drag, zoom with the wheel or a pinch, pan with a right-drag.
3. Read the PLY header panel: format, elements, properties and face sizes.
4. Set the units (many scans are in metres) and the up axis, then save the view as a PNG.

What you can use it for

• Check a 3D scan from a phone or scanner
• Look at a point cloud with its colours
• See what a PLY holds before you convert it
• Find the size of a scanned object
• Check a photogrammetry mesh before printing
• Preview a splat file’s shape

What the viewer reads from a PLY

In the PLY	What you see
Vertex x, y, z	The shape, scaled by the units you choose
Faces: triangles, quads, faces with 5 or more corners	All drawn; quads and larger faces split into triangles on their own plane
Vertex colours (red, green, blue or diffuse_red …)	Drawn on the surface or the points
Face colours (red, green, blue on the face element)	Each face drawn in its colour
Stored normals (nx, ny, nz)	Used for shading, or worked out from the faces if there are none
Points with no faces	Drawn as a point cloud, point size adjustable
Splat files (f_dc_0, f_dc_1, f_dc_2, opacity, scale, rotation)	Splat centres drawn as points in their base colour
Comments, obj_info, other elements	Listed in the header report

Faces that point to vertices that do not exist are skipped and counted, never guessed. A file that stops before the header’s counts are reached is refused with the reason.

What the test files give

Test file	PLY type	Faces: 3 / 4 / 5+ corners (or points)	Triangles drawn	Colours
Hexagonal prism (6-corner ends)	ASCII	0 / 6 / 2	20	none
L-shaped prism (concave 6-corner ends)	ASCII	0 / 6 / 2	20	none
10 mm cube of quads, vertex colours	ASCII	0 / 6 / 0	12	vertex colours (uchar 0–255)
Cube with one colour per face	ASCII	0 / 6 / 0	12	face colours
Coloured point cloud	binary LE	120 points	–	vertex colours (uchar 0–255)
Same cloud, float colours and normals	binary BE	120 points	–	vertex colours (float 0–1)
Splat file (3 splats)	ASCII	3 points	–	splat base colour
UV sphere, quads	binary LE	128 / 1,920 / 0	3,968	vertex colours (uchar 0–255)

Computed by the viewer’s own reader from its test files. The hexagonal prism has two 6-corner faces and six quads: 4 + 4 + 12 = 20 triangles, all drawn.

The sample files

Button	PLY type	Vertices	Faces: 3 / 4 / 5+ corners	Triangles
Try a sample	binary LE	12	0 / 6 / 2	20
Try a point cloud	binary LE	2,000	0 (point cloud)	–

Both samples are made by the page itself, so nothing is fetched: a coloured hexagonal prism with 6-corner end faces, and 2,000 coloured points on a sphere.

Point clouds and splat files

File holds	Drawn as
Vertices only (a point cloud from a scanner or photogrammetry)	Points, in their colours
Vertices with red, green, blue	Coloured points
Splat parameters (f_dc_0 … rot_3)	Points at the splat centres, colour = 0.5 + 0.2821 × f_dc (the base colour term)
Vertices and faces	A surface (mesh)

Point size is in screen pixels, so points stay visible at any zoom. The size and bounding box use every point.

PLY types this viewer reads

Format line	Data after the header
format ascii 1.0	Numbers as text
format binary_little_endian 1.0	Binary, least significant byte first
format binary_big_endian 1.0	Binary, most significant byte first

A PLY file starts with the letters ply and a text header that lists each element (such as vertex and face), how many there are, and their properties, ending with end_header.

Next steps

To print a PLY mesh, convert it with OBJ to STL after exporting an OBJ, or check an STL in the STL viewer. Working with other formats? The STEP viewer opens CAD files, and GLB to STL converts GLB models.

Sources

Sources: Library of Congress: Polygon File Format (PLY) Family; Paul Bourke: PLY, Polygon File Format.

Frequently asked questions

Is this PLY viewer free?

Yes. There is no sign-up, no watermark and no limit on how many files you open. The file is read in your browser, so it never leaves your device.

Does it show point clouds?

Yes. A PLY with vertices and no faces is drawn as points, in the file’s colours when it has them. Change Point size if the points are too small or too big for the view.

Does it read binary PLY?

Yes: ASCII, binary little-endian and binary big-endian, with all the PLY number types (char, uchar, short, ushort, int, uint, float, double and their int8 to float64 names).

Are colours shown?

Yes. Vertex colours (red, green, blue, as whole numbers 0 to 255 or as decimals 0 to 1) and colours stored per face are drawn. The header report says which kind your file has.

Why are some faces missing in other viewers?

Some viewers keep only faces with three or four corners. Here every face with three or more corners is split into triangles, so a hexagon or a face with a notch is drawn whole.

Can it show Gaussian splat PLY files?

It opens them and draws each splat centre as a point in its base colour (from the f_dc values), so you can see the shape. It does not blend the splats, so the picture is not the photo-like render a splat viewer gives.

Why does my scan look tiny or huge?

PLY has no unit field. Many scanning apps save in metres, so a 20 cm object reads as 0.2 mm. Choose Metres under Units in the file and the size line shows 200 mm.

My model lies on its side. What do I do?

Some programs use Y as up, others Z. Choose Y is up or Z is up under Up axis and the model is turned.

Is my PLY uploaded?

No. The PLY is read by JavaScript in your browser, so it never leaves your device.