GLB to USDZ

Why USDZ at all

An iPhone will not open a GLB. Send someone a model and they get a grey download icon; send them a USDZ and it opens straight into AR Quick Look — the model standing on their table, no app installed, because the viewer is built into iOS. Safari, Files, Mail and Messages all do this natively.

That makes USDZ the single most useful export for showing a model to someone who does not have a 3D program — a client, a customer on a product page, anyone with an iPhone in their pocket.

What travels, and what does not

Geometry, UVs and the PBR texture set come across: base colour, metalness/roughness, normal, occlusion and emissive maps are written as USD preview surfaces, which is the exact set Quick Look renders. Fancier material features — clearcoat, transmission, sheen — fall back to those maps, because the USD preview surface has nowhere to put them.

Animation does not travel from this page. The output is a static model, and a rigged character ships in whatever pose it arrived in. If the pose is wrong, set it in the editor first and re-export.

The texture size choice matters more than usual

Quick Look downloads and parses the entire file before the AR view opens. A model with 4K textures can sit on a spinner for ten seconds on cellular — an eternity when someone tapped a link expecting magic. The 1024 px default is the balance point for AR delivery — USDZ stores textures as PNG, so resolution is the lever that decides the file size. Go to 2048 px only when the model is inspected up close.

The conversion resizes on the way through, so you can feed it the original heavy file and let this page do the shrinking.

No Mac required

The usual route to USDZ is Reality Converter, which runs only on macOS. This page does the conversion in the browser tab, so a Windows or Linux machine produces the file just as well — and nothing is uploaded anywhere on the way.

How to use it

1. Drop your model into the box above — GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, STL, PLY or VRM.
2. Pick a texture cap. 1024 px is the AR sweet spot; 2048 px only if the model is inspected up close.
3. Press Convert to USDZ and download the file.
4. AirDrop it to an iPhone or put it behind a link — it opens straight into AR Quick Look.

Questions

How do I view a GLB on an iPhone in AR?

Convert it to USDZ — drop the GLB above and download the result. Open that file on the iPhone (AirDrop it, or put it behind a link) and it launches AR Quick Look directly: the model appears in the room through the camera, no app needed.

Does the animation come across?

No — this page writes a static USDZ. USDZ as a format can carry animation, but a reliable skeletal conversion from arbitrary input rigs is a different, heavier job than a format conversion, and a half-working one is worse than an honest no. A rigged character exports in its current pose.

Why do my materials look simpler in AR?

Quick Look renders the USD preview surface: base colour, metal/rough, normal, occlusion, emissive. Anything beyond that — transmission, clearcoat, procedural effects — has no slot in the format and falls back. The maps themselves travel at up to the size you chose above.

Is my model uploaded?

No. The file is read, converted and written back entirely inside the browser tab. Nothing leaves your machine, which also means there is no file size limit beyond what the tab can hold in memory.

The other tools

• Batch processing — Run any Rig Bake tool over a whole folder of models and get one zip back.
• Reduce polygons — Cut the triangle count of a GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX or VRM — or a zipped model folder — and keep the textures. Runs in your browser, no file size limit, nothing uploaded.
• Quad remesh — Rebuild any mesh as clean quads with real edge flow, in your browser — with the UVs and textures rebuilt onto the new surface too. Reads GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX and VRM, with no file size limit.
• Bake a normal map — Bake high-poly detail into a normal map (and ambient occlusion) for a light version of the model — the xNormal workflow, in your browser. Drop one heavy model, or add your own low-poly and the maps bake onto its UVs. No upload, no account, no file size limit.
• Compress GLB — Name the file size you need and get it. Drop a GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX or VRM — or a zipped model folder — and the page works down a list: dead weight first, then the mesh bytes, then the textures, and only then the triangles. In your browser, no file size limit.
• FBX to GLB — Convert an FBX — Mixamo, Blender, an AI generator — into a GLB, with the centimetre scale fixed on the way through. Any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Check a 3D model for problems — The Model doctor: find what is wrong with a model before it wastes your afternoon — wrong scale, broken bind pose, inverted normals, overlapping UVs, holes. Reads GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX and VRM, any size, in your browser.
• Repair a 3D model — Weld split vertices, drop degenerate faces and stray islands, fill holes, flip inverted normals. GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, STL, PLY, VOX or VRM — any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Pixel art from 3D — Drop an animated model, get a pixel-art spritesheet. The palette, the dither and the direction set are already chosen — fine-tuning lives in the editor.
• GLB to STL — Convert a 3D model to a printable STL — scaled to real millimetres, turned Z-up, and told plainly whether it is watertight. GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, DAE, PLY, VOX or VRM in, any size, in your browser.
• OBJ to GLB — Convert an .obj into a GLB that engines and browsers read. Geometry and UVs travel; OBJ has nothing else to carry. Any size, in your browser, nothing uploaded.
• LOD Generator — Turn one model into a chain of LOD meshes — each level a measured step down, zipped together with per-level stats. In your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Merge Materials — Merge every mesh and material into one mesh with one atlased material — draw calls collapse to a single one. In your browser, nothing uploaded.
• Everything else Rig Bake does — rigging, retargeting, spritesheets, VFX.