stl
What is a .stl file?
model/stl
STL (Stereolithography) is a 3D model format that represents a surface as an unstructured collection of triangular facets, each with a normal and three vertices. It stores only geometry with no color, texture, or units, and comes in ASCII and binary variants. It is the workhorse format for 3D printing.
How to use a .stl file
Use an example STL to test mesh loaders, ASCII versus binary parsing, slicer and 3D-print pipelines, and geometry validation such as watertightness checks.
Download example .stl files
- STL — ASCII CubeA 10 mm cube as ASCII STL — human-readable facet/normal/vertex records. The most portable 3D-print mesh format; for testing STL parsers and slicers.
- STL — Binary CubeThe same 10 mm cube as binary STL — an 80-byte header, a triangle count, and packed little-endian floats. Compact; for testing binary-STL readers.