STL viewer: open an STL file online
Drop an .stl file and it opens in your browser, rendered with real metal materials and studio lighting instead of a flat grey preview. You can turn it, zoom in on the detail and see how many parts it holds. Nothing is installed and the file is not uploaded. STL carries no units and no materials, so what you see is the shape alone.
3D Jewelry Designer1 min read
Open a STL file
What STL is good for
STL is the format of 3D printing and casting resin: a surface made of triangles and nothing else. That makes it the safest file to send a printer and the poorest for a product image, because it has no materials, no parts and no units.
Getting more than the shape
If the piece will be shown or sold, ask for a .3dm or .glb as well. Both keep separate parts, so metal and stones can take their own materials, and a .3dm keeps its units.
Questions
Why is my whole STL one part?
An STL usually holds a single mesh, so a ring and its stones arrive as one object. Metal and stones cannot be told apart, and the whole piece is shown as metal.
Does an STL file record its size?
No. STL stores coordinates without units, so the same file can mean millimetres or inches. Tools that measure it have to infer or ask, which is why the metal weight calculator lets you set the units.
Related
- 3DM viewer: open a Rhino file online
Open a Rhino .3dm file in your browser, rendered as jewellery, with every part, its layer and whether it is metal or stone listed. No Rhino needed.
- OBJ viewer: open an OBJ file online
Open an .obj mesh in your browser, rendered with jewellery materials, with each of its groups listed as a part. Free and nothing is uploaded.
- 3D file formats compared: 3DM, GLB, STL, OBJ, FBX and more
What 3DM, GLB, STL, OBJ, FBX, Collada and PLY can and cannot carry: exact curves, units, separate parts and materials, and what each is for.