Sample 3D Model Files for Download — STL, OBJ, GLB, glTF, PLY, 3MF, USDZ, FBX

For the web, GLB: it is one binary file carrying geometry, PBR materials, textures and animation, and it is what three.js, Babylon.js, model-viewer and most online viewers are built around. For 3D printing, STL and 3MF. For interchange with older tools, OBJ. Add USDZ if iPhone and iPad users need to open models in AR Quick Look, and FBX only if you take files from game engines or Autodesk tools.

The glTF, GLB, OBJ, PLY, OFF, DAE and USDZ files are Y-up and in metres, which is what glTF requires and what most viewers assume. The STL and 3MF files are Z-up and in millimetres, which is what slicers assume, and they sit on z = 0. FBX is Y-up in centimetres, its native unit. Each file's units and up axis are listed beside it, because a model that appears 1,000 times too small, or lying on its side, is the most common 3D upload bug.

Yes. The edge-case pack has a 3D section: an STL with zero triangles, degenerate and inside-out meshes, a non-manifold mesh, coordinates of 10 million and of one millionth, values close to the float32 limit, a truncated GLB, an STL whose header lies about its triangle count, a GLB with an .stl extension, a binary STL whose header starts with “solid”, and a Unicode filename.

Those are application project files rather than interchange formats, and they can only be written correctly by the application itself, which we cannot run in an open, reproducible pipeline. The formats here are the ones that pipelines actually receive from users and exporters.