The resulting file doesn’t describe texture, color, scale, or units.ĭoing so effectively transforms the model into a collection of tiny triangles that drop in size but grow in number as a model’s complexity increases but remain vastly simpler than traditional CAD-generated surfaces and, especially, curves. Unlike other CAD file formats, which feature a host of information about a specific 3D model’s complex surfacing and geometry based on curves and splines (OBJ being one popular example), STL converts surfaces to a mesh or cloud of triangular faces and vertices through a technique known as tessellation. The idea was to create a file format as a simple and lightweight vessel for a 3D CAD model that’s easy to output to a 3D printer.
