Stanford PLY
Reference
- Category:
Import-Export
- Menu:
Use the operator to import ASCII or binary PLY-files, you can select multiple files at once. For exporting, you can choose to enable or disable the modifiers during the export and you can choose which data you want to export (UV textures, Color Attributes, …).
Import
- Scale
Value by which to scale the imported objects in relation to the world’s origin.
- Scene Unit
Apply current scene’s unit (as defined by unit scale) to imported data.
- Forward Axis, Up Axis
Since many applications use a different axis for ‘Up’, these are axis conversion for these settings, Forward and Up axes – By mapping these to different axes you can convert rotations between applications default up and forward axes.
Blender uses Y Forward, Z Up (since the front view looks along the +Y direction). For example, it’s common for applications to use Y as the up axis, in that case -Z Forward, Y Up is needed.
- Merge Vertices
Attempts to combine co-located vertices where possible.
- Import Vertex Colors
The color space that the color data in the ply-file was saved in.
- None:
Does not import vertex color data.
- sRGB:
Vertex colors in the file are in sRGB Color Space
- Linear:
Vertex colors in the file are in Linear Color Space
Export
- Format: ASCII
Formats the file using the simple a ASCII format. This option might be helpful if the program that will later import the file does not support the binary file format.
- Limit to: Selected Only
Only selected objects are exported. Instanced objects, for example collections that are instanced in the scene, are considered ‘selected’ when their instancer is selected.
- Scale
Value by which to scale the exported objects in relation to the world’s origin.
- Forward Axis, Up Axis
Since many applications use a different axis for ‘Up’, these are axis conversion for these settings, Forward and Up axes – By mapping these to different axes you can convert rotations between applications default up and forward axes.
Blender uses Y Forward, Z Up (since the front view looks along the +Y direction). For example, it’s common for applications to use Y as the up axis, in that case -Z Forward, Y Up is needed.
- Objects: Apply Modifiers
Export objects using the evaluated mesh, meaning the resulting mesh after all Modifiers have been calculated.
- Geometry: UV Coordinates
Write out the active UV layers coordinates from Blender.
- Geometry: Normals
Write out Blender’s face and vertex normals (depending on the faces smooth setting).
Mostly this isn’t needed since most applications will calculate their own normals but to match Blender’s normal map textures you will need to write these too.
- Import Vertex Colors
The color space that the color data in the ply-file was saved in.
- None:
Does not import vertex color data.
- sRGB:
Vertex colors in the file are in sRGB Color Space
- Linear:
Vertex colors in the file are in Linear Color Space
- Triangulated Mesh
All N-gons with four or more vertices will be triangulated. Meshes in the scene will not be affected. Behaves like Triangulate Modifier with the following settings:
N-gon-method: “Beauty”
Quad-method: “Shortest Diagonal”
Min vertices: 4