to
Our free and fast tool will convert most 3D mesh or 3DS (3D Studio Mesh) model files to a standard PLY (Stanford Triangle Format) file that can then be edited further in most popular 3D editing packages such as Blender or 3D printed without any further processing.
To convert your 3DS file click the Upload button above and select the file to convert. Once selected, the file will be converted to a PLY file and will ready for download shortly afterwards. For more information about the 3DS to PLY conversion process see the conversion information section below for more information.
Here are 2 simple steps to convert your 3DS to PLY.
The PLY file generated by our tool will be in the binary little endian format.
First click the "Upload..." button, select your 3DS file to upload. Select any configuration options. When the 3DS to PLY conversion has completed, you can download your PLY file straight away.
We aim to process all 3DS to PLY conversions as quickly as possible, this usually takes around 5 seconds but can be more for larger more complex files so please be patient.
We aim to create the most accurate conversions with our tools. Our tools are under constant development with new features and improvements being added every week.
Yes, of course! We do not store the 3DS file you submit to us. The resulting PLY file, once created is deleted 1 hour after upload and the download link will expire after this time.
Yes! Our 3DS to PLY tool will run on any system with a modern web browser. No specialist software is needed to run any of our conversion tools.
Yes. Although you can use an Ad Blocker, if you like our 3DS conversion tool please consider white-listing our site. When an Ad Blocker is enabled there are some conversion limits on some of our tools and processing/conversion times will be longer.
| Extension | 3DS |
| Full Name | 3D Studio Mesh |
| Type | 3D Model |
| Mime Type | N/A |
| Format | Binary |
| Open With | MeshLab |
The 3DS format has been a standard 3D format for many years. It has been the native file format for Autodesk's 3D Studio from the days of Microsoft's MS DOS. The age of the format began to show its limitations many years ago and was replaced by Autodesk when 3D Studio Max was launched.
There are however still many 3D model files circulating in the 3DS format and these can be easily converted using our 3DS conversion tools. Some of the limitations of the 3DS file format include: texture names limited to DOS 8.3 filenames, maximum number of vertices allowed in the 3D mesh is capped at 65536 and no support for directional lighting.
Currently our tool does not support importing materials or color information from your 3DS file.
The PLY format is a 3D model format originally developed and released in 1994 with its primary use being to store three-dimensional data from 3D digital scanners. The format known as the Polygon File Format and also the Stanford Triangle Format can be either a binary or text based format.
The file format stores 3D geometric information such as vertices, faces, vertex normals, color and other custom data. The format is still in use with many PLY models available to download and PLY files can be loaded into most popular 3D applications such as Blender.
PLY files support per vertex color information. If your uploaded model contains color information our tool will attempt to save this in the PLY file at the end of the conversion process.
