OBJ to GLB converter
Drop your .obj file — we convert it to .glb right in your browser. Files never leave your computer.
Why convert OBJ to GLB?
Turning a Blender / ZBrush OBJ into a web-ready asset. GLB bundles geometry and materials in a single binary file — no stray texture files to lose when you email it. For anyone publishing 3D on a web page, GLB is the deployment target.
Who runs this conversion
Web devs embedding 3D assets, <model-viewer> users on product pages, three.js developers who want a single-file import, and Sketchfab creators preparing downloads.
Things that commonly go wrong
- OBJ references .mtl and texture files by path — if the textures are missing at convert time, the GLB arrives with default materials. Pack textures beside the .obj.
- Multi-object OBJs become a single GLB scene; animation does not exist in either format, so expect a static scene.
- Vertex colours (non-standard OBJ extension) rarely survive conversion. Bake to texture first if you need them.
Technical note for this tool
OBJLoader + MTLLoader (when a .mtl sibling is found) → Group → GLTFExporter binary. Diffuse colour and base-colour textures map cleanly; specular gets approximated as metallic-roughness.
OBJ vs GLB— what's the difference?
Human-readable Wavefront mesh format — ubiquitous in 3D graphics, game art, and asset pipelines. Pairs with a .mtl material file.
- Supported by virtually every 3D tool (Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, Unity, Unreal…)
- Plain-text, easy to diff and hand-edit
- Keeps UV coordinates and vertex normals, unlike STL
- Material references via companion .mtl file
- Text format — larger on disk than binary meshes
- No scene hierarchy, no animation, no skeletons
- Materials live in a separate file; easy to lose
Binary glTF — the JPEG of 3D. Self-contained, small, and loads natively on the web, in AR, and in every modern 3D engine.
- Everything (geometry, textures, materials, animations) packed into one file
- Tiny and fast — designed for streaming and web delivery
- Native support in Blender, Unity, Unreal, three.js, <model-viewer>, Android ARCore…
- PBR materials (metallic-roughness) render consistently everywhere
- Binary — not hand-editable
- Less common in traditional CAD pipelines
Deeper context on the formats
OBJ — where it came from
Created by Wavefront Technologies in the late 1980s for their Advanced Visualizer software. When Wavefront was absorbed into Alias (then Autodesk), the format stayed public and became the lingua franca for academic 3D research, hobbyist modeling, and early game art. Its ASCII simplicity is why every graphics textbook still ships an OBJ example file.
- The .mtl material file must travel with the .obj — ship them as a zip or the textures will vanish on the other side.
- Negative indices and per-face normals exist in the spec but many importers silently misread them. Re-export from a round-trip through Blender if a downstream tool complains.
- Triangulate before export if the target is a game engine — Unity and Unreal OBJ importers choke on n-gons.
Real-world use: Computer-graphics research papers still use OBJ as the reference format for meshes. Hobbyist marketplaces (TurboSquid, CGTrader free tiers) distribute OBJ + MTL packs. Photogrammetry pipelines (Meshroom, RealityCapture) output OBJ as the portable intermediate. It is still the safest format to hand to a stranger who just said "I need a 3D model."
GLB — where it came from
glTF 2.0 was ratified by the Khronos Group in 2017 and quickly became the W3C-recommended format for web 3D. GLB is the "one-file-to-rule-them-all" binary packaging — geometry, textures, animations, and the scene graph all in a single .glb. Adoption was explosive because <model-viewer>, Android Scene Viewer, and every modern game engine landed support almost simultaneously.
- The PBR material model assumes linear-space textures — DCC tools that export gamma-baked colour maps will look washed-out in web viewers.
- Draco mesh compression bloats load time if the decoder is not preloaded; turn it off unless you actually need the bandwidth savings.
- Y-up vs Z-up: glTF is strictly right-handed Y-up. Blender, 3ds Max, and most CAD exports need an axis flip on import or the model lies on its side.
Real-world use: E-commerce product pages (IKEA, Amazon, Shopify 3D), Android AR Quick View, <model-viewer>-powered docs, NFT marketplaces, and real-time configurators. If a 3D asset has to render in a browser tab without plugins, the answer is GLB.
How to convert OBJ to GLB
- 1Drop a .obj file on the page. If a .mtl companion exists, load both — the previewer reads them together.
- 2Preview the mesh in 3D. Use the Scene Tree on the left to walk the named groups.
- 3Click Download .GLB. The single binary is ready for three.js, <model-viewer>, Unity or AR.
FAQ
Do materials from the .mtl file carry over?
Diffuse colour and diffuse textures map to glTF's PBR base-colour. Specular / shininess from OBJ doesn't translate cleanly to metallic-roughness and is approximated. Review the result and tweak in Blender if the look matters.
Why is the GLB much smaller than the OBJ?
OBJ is text and re-lists every vertex per face. GLB is binary with indexed geometry — typically 3–10× smaller for the same model.
What about UVs and normals?
Both are preserved. If the OBJ has vertex normals they transfer; otherwise Three.js computes flat or smooth normals based on the OBJ groups.
Can the result be used for AR?
GLB works out of the box with Android Scene Viewer. For iOS AR Quick Look you specifically need USDZ — use the STEP-to-USDZ or the main 3D viewer's USDZ export.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. Conversion happens entirely in your browser via Three.js' OBJ loader and GLTFExporter.