3D model file formats
17 formats in this category.
3D formats describe geometry, and sometimes materials, textures, rigs and animation. Some are made for 3D printing, others for games, film or CAD interchange.
Meshes, scenes and printing
3D formats describe geometry and, depending on the format, materials, textures, rigs and animation. Interchange formats (OBJ, FBX, glTF, COLLADA) move models between applications; glTF has become the standard for the web and real-time engines because it is compact and carries materials and animation. Printing formats (STL, 3MF) describe a watertight solid for a 3D printer, with 3MF carrying colour and material data that plain STL cannot.
CAD formats (STEP, IGES, DWG) describe precise engineering geometry with exact curves and constraints, rather than the triangle meshes used in games and film.
Why a 3D file looks wrong when imported
Models frequently import with missing textures or the wrong scale. Textures are often stored as separate image files that a format like OBJ references by name, so moving the model without its texture folder breaks the look. glTF binary (.glb) avoids this by packing everything into one file. Scale and axis conventions also differ between tools, which is why an imported model can appear tiny or lying on its side.