PLY zu GLTF Konverter

What carries over from PLY

PLY is common for photogrammetry, LiDAR, and depth-sensor scans, and it can store more than geometry. The converter reads ASCII and binary PLY meshes and keeps vertex positions, faces, per-vertex normals, UV coordinates (s and t, u and v, or texture_u and texture_v properties), and per-vertex colors (red, green, and blue). If the file has no normals, smooth normals are calculated so the mesh shades correctly.

Vertex colors are written to the glTF COLOR_0 attribute with a white base color, so the scan shows its captured colors in glTF viewers instead of a grey tint. The output is a glTF 2.0 JSON file with the binary buffer embedded as a base64 data URI, so there is no separate .bin file.

What does not carry over

• Point clouds without faces. The converter expects a mesh, so a PLY made only of points will not produce a usable surface. Reconstruct a mesh first, for example with Poisson surface reconstruction in MeshLab or CloudCompare.
• Texture images that sit next to the PLY. Some scanners save a separate JPG or PNG. It is not embedded, but the UVs are kept, so you can reassign the image in your 3D app.
• Custom properties such as confidence, intensity, or quality values. They are ignored.
• Automatic unit or axis fixes. Some scanners export millimeters or Z-up data, so check scale and rotation after conversion.

Vertex colors or textures?

Vertex colors store one color per vertex, so the visible detail depends on how dense the mesh is. That suits dense scans, but when you decimate a scan for real-time use, color detail disappears with the removed vertices. For game and web assets, the usual approach is to simplify the mesh, unwrap UVs, and bake the vertex colors into a texture, or to generate a new PBR texture set for the simplified mesh.

From scan to textured asset

1. 1

   Convert and inspect

   Convert the PLY to GLTF here, then check the vertex count and colors in the GLTF viewer.

2. 2

   Simplify

   Import the model into Blender and use a Decimate modifier to reach the polygon budget of your target platform.

3. 3

   Unwrap

   Create UVs with Smart UV Project or with manually placed seams.

4. 4

   Texture

   Bake the vertex colors to an image with Cycles, or export as GLB and upload it to TextureFast to generate a new Base Color and PBR maps from a prompt.

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