The first 80 bytes of the file is the name of the part stored in the file header, which can be put in any text information followed by a 4-byte integer to describe the number of triangles of the entity, and the following content is to give each triangle one by one. The binary STL file uses a fixed number of bytes to give the geometric information of the triangular facets. The format of the STL binary file is as follows: Vertex x y z ∥The coordinates of the third vertex of the triangleĮndfacet // The first triangle face is definedĮndsolid filenamestl ∥The end of the entire file Vertex x y z // The coordinates of the second vertex of the triangle Vertex x y z ∥The coordinates of the first vertex of the triangle Solid filenamestl //File path and file nameįacet normal x y z // 3 component values of the normal vector of the triangular face There are 2 types of STL files: text files (ASCII format) and binary files (BINARY). The order of the vertices of the triangle follows the right-hand rule.

STL files contain no scale information, and the units are arbitrary. In the original specification, all STL coordinates were required to be positive numbers, but this restriction is no longer enforced and negative coordinates are commonly encountered in STL files today.

Binary files are more common, since they are more compact.Īn STL file describes a raw, unstructured triangulated surface by the unit normal and vertices (ordered by the right-hand rule) of the triangles using a three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. The STL format specifies both ASCII and binary representations. STL is a file format native to the stereolithography CAD software created by 3D Systems.STL has several backronyms such as “Standard Triangle Language” and “Standard Tessellation Language”.This file format is supported by many other software packages it is widely used for rapid prototyping, 3D printing and computer-aided manufacturing.STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD model attributes.

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