XYZ Viewer — Open XYZ Point Files Online
Open plain-text XYZ point files from surveying, scanning and scientific instruments, with colour where included.
Your XYZ file is read and rendered entirely by your own browser. It is never uploaded to A23D, never stored, and never seen by anyone but you.
How to open a XYZ file
No account, no plugin, no upload. Three steps and your model is on screen.
Drop in your file
Drag the .xyz onto the viewer, or click to browse. If the model references separate material or texture files, drop the whole folder or a .zip so everything resolves.
Inspect the scene
Orbit, pan and zoom to look around. The inspector lists every mesh in the hierarchy with its triangle count, and reports the bounding box so you can sanity-check scale.
Convert or capture
Save a PNG of the viewport, or download the model converted to GLB, OBJ, STL, PLY or USDZ — all without the file leaving your browser.
What is an XYZ file?
XYZ is the simplest 3D format in existence: a text file where each line holds the coordinates of one point, separated by spaces. There is no header, no version, no vendor and no specification — which is precisely why so many instruments and scripts emit it.
A minimal line is three numbers. Many producers add three more for colour, giving x y z r g b, and this viewer reads both forms, applying per-point colour when six values are present.
Because nothing is declared, everything must be inferred. There is no unit, no coordinate system, no up-axis and no point count. Survey data may be in metres in a projected national grid; a desktop scan may be in millimetres. The viewer frames whatever it is given and lets you set the unit assumption to read real dimensions.
The same extension is also used, confusingly, for a completely unrelated purpose: chemistry XYZ files list atoms with an element symbol and coordinates, preceded by an atom count. Those describe molecules, not point clouds, and will not render as geometry here.
You will meet XYZ output from total stations and surveying equipment, laser scanners, coordinate measuring machines, and any number of one-off export scripts — because writing three numbers per line is the least work a program can do to emit 3D data.
XYZ at a glance
- Extension
- .xyz
- Developer
- None — de facto convention
- Encoding
- Plain text
- Line format
- x y z, optionally r g b
- Header
- None
- Unit
- Undefined
- Geometry
- Points, no faces
What this viewer supports
- Space-separated x y z point lists
- Optional per-point RGB colour
- Automatic point sizing from cloud extent
- Bounding-box readout with unit conversion
- Export to GLB, PLY
- Chemistry XYZ molecule files
- Comma-separated variants (use .csv tools)
XYZ viewer FAQs
The questions we get asked most about opening XYZ files.
Is my XYZ file uploaded anywhere?
No. It is parsed and rendered locally in your browser. Survey and scan data often cannot leave an organisation, and nothing here is transmitted to A23D or stored.
Why is my point cloud grey instead of coloured?
Colour only appears when each line carries six values — x y z r g b. Files with just three coordinates contain no colour information at all, so they render in a neutral tone.
My chemistry XYZ file will not display. Why?
Chemistry XYZ files use the same extension for a different purpose: an atom count, a comment line, then an element symbol and coordinates per atom. They describe molecules rather than point geometry and are not rendered here.
My file is comma-separated and will not load.
The XYZ convention is space-separated values. If your data is comma-separated it is really a CSV — replace the commas with spaces, or export again choosing space as the delimiter.
What unit is my data in?
XYZ declares nothing, so it cannot be known from the file. The inspector lets you state what one unit represents — millimetres, centimetres, metres or inches — and the bounding-box dimensions update accordingly.
Can I convert XYZ to PLY?
Yes. Load the file and use Convert to, then choose PLY, which is the usual format for taking a cloud into MeshLab or CloudCompare for meshing. GLB is also available.
More format viewers
All browser-based, all free, nothing uploaded.
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