The Complete PLY to glTF Conversion Guide
General Information
This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Formats Knowledge Database. It shows how to convert PLY to glTF, if you'd like to know more about the formats, please check out the following links:
Comparison of Features Supported by PLY and glTF
| Feature | Supported by PLY | Supported by glTF |
|---|---|---|
| Morph Targets | No | Yes |
| Rigid Animations | No | Yes |
| Skinned Animations | No | Yes |
| Animations | No | Yes |
| Free-Form Surfaces | No | No |
| Geometry Compression | No | Yes |
| Quad Meshes | Yes | No |
| Basic 3D Geometry | Yes | Yes |
| PBR Materials | No | Yes |
| Transparent Materials | No | Yes |
| Vertex Colors | Yes | Yes |
| Materials | Partial | Yes |
| Scene Composition | No | No |
| Hierarchical Scene Graph | No | Yes |
| Scene Nodes | No | Yes |
| Standardized Format | No0 | Yes |
| Embedded Textures | No | Yes |
| Multiple UV Channels | No | Yes |
| Normal Mapping | No | Yes |
| Procedural Textures | No | No |
| Texture Compression | No | Yes |
| Texture Transforms | No | Yes |
| Texturing | Partial | Yes |
Limitations of a PLY Files to glTF Conversion Workflow
The following limitations should be taken into account when converting PLY files to glTF format:
| PLY Feature (not supported by glTF) | Limitation Details |
|---|---|
| Quad Meshes |   Quad Meshes: supported in PLY, but not in glTF. Quad meshes are a common way to hand-model and edit 3D models. 3D artists get intuitive control and such meshes are also easy to refine, as well as well-suited for creation of skinned animations. However, real-time rendering pipelines and hardware are usually all based on triangles, so if a 3D model should not be edited any more, it is safe to convert quads to triangles (and engines will do this automatically before sending data to the rendering hardware). In this example, a part of a mesh is modeled with quads. Without support for this feature, quads will have to be triangulated, producing a pure triangle mesh. |
Converting and Optimizing PLY Files to glTF
There are various ways to convert between PLY and glTF. With RapidPipeline, you can easily convert and and optimize PLY files, at scale. It supports glTF, as well as many other file formats (examples: 3dsMax, FBX, OBJ, STEP, STL, USD, USDZ, VRM), at high quality.
Due to the potential limitations aforementioned on the table above, in principle, one cannot always perfectly convert 3D data between glTF and other formats. In the following, you can find conversion guides between glTF and the most important other formats, along with a rough score for compatibility of this workflow:
What's the best way to get PLY files into my 3D applications, and are there alternatives to using glTF?
Doing 3D conversion right, especially at scale, can be tricky, as 3D data is in general a rather complex (yet very powerful!) medium. This also applies to PLY and glTF files - the conversion guide above provides a rough first idea about that. Once you know what you would like to do, tools like RapidPipeline can help you perform the necessary steps, and to even automate the process for thousands or even millions of files.
Especially when introducing pipelines and workflows at scale in an enterprise context, it is usually good to rely on dedicated tools and expertise, making sure you do not introduce any steps into your 3D workflow that are detrimental to the final output's quality, or that take your team too much time (and money).
If you're interested to hire dedicated expertise from the best in the field to help your company reach your goals fast and reliably, please do not hestitate to contact DGG. Being the creators of RapidPipeline, and ambassadors for open 3D standards for more than a decade, we have been building some of the world's most advanced 3D pipelines, having processed many millions of 3D assets.
Therefore, our expertise will help you to reach your goals faster, at scale, and with the least possible friction, since we are focused on maximum interoperability.
To get started with 3D data conversion and optimization today, sign up for a free account!
If you have any questions, feel free to chat with our human team.
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