Novus Convert
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Vector & CAD format

DRC converter

A .drc file is a standalone geometry stream compressed with Google's Draco codec. It can carry indexed mesh or point-cloud attributes such as positions, normals, colours and texture coordinates, but it is not a scene container and does not include materials, textures, lights or animation.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop DRC files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where DRC comes from

Google released Draco as an open-source geometry compression library for faster 3D delivery. It became especially visible through the KHR_draco_mesh_compression glTF extension, where compressed geometry sits inside a wider glTF scene. The standalone .drc form exposes the codec payload directly and is useful when geometry size matters more than scene packaging.

How DRC works

  • A standalone stream begins with the DRACO signature and identifies whether it contains a triangular mesh or a point cloud.
  • Connectivity and attributes are compressed separately using prediction and entropy coding.
  • Quantization can reduce coordinate precision, so decoding is faithful to the stored values but cannot restore discarded source precision.
  • The decoder runs in one worker from revision-pinned, self-hosted JavaScript and WebAssembly assets; no model bytes are uploaded.
  • Standalone Draco carries geometry attributes, not the scene, material and animation structures supplied by glTF.

When to use DRC

  • Opening a standalone Draco mesh
  • Moving compressed geometry into GLB or glTF
  • Producing an editable OBJ or PLY rendition
  • Preparing decoded triangle geometry for an STL workflow

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Strong geometry compression
  • Open-source decoder with broad web ecosystem use
  • Preserves indexed attributes more efficiently than text mesh formats

Limitations

  • Requires a decoder before anything can inspect it
  • Quantization may already have discarded precision
  • Standalone streams omit materials, textures and scene hierarchy

Compatibility

Draco is supported directly by its reference library and through major glTF toolchains and Three.js. Novus Convert decodes bounded standalone triangle meshes locally and exports PLY, GLB, glTF, OBJ or STL. Every release fixture is reopened with a separate target parser, while malformed streams, point-cloud-only payloads and excessive geometry remain explicit failures.

Position geometry is preserved at the precision stored in the Draco stream; materials, textures, scene metadata, rigging and animation are absent from standalone .drc and cannot be recovered.

Convert DRC to another format