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Vector & CAD format

XYZ converter

An .xyz file is the least structured 3D format in use: lines of numbers, three columns for a point cloud. Confusingly, the same extension also names a chemistry format — an atom count, a comment line, then one line per atom starting with an element symbol — so a reader has to decide which it is holding from the shape of the content.

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Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop XYZ 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 XYZ comes from

The point-cloud form has no author and no specification; it is simply what surveying and scanning tools produce when asked for coordinates, and it predates any of the formats that tried to standardise it. The chemical form comes from the computational-chemistry world, popularised by the XMol program in the early 1990s, and is the default input of nearly every molecular tool. The two grew up independently and collided over an extension.

How XYZ works

  • Point-cloud form: one point per line, whitespace- or comma-separated, sometimes with extra columns for colour or intensity that readers must ignore.
  • Chemical form: line 1 is an integer atom count, line 2 is a free-text comment, and each following line is an element symbol plus three coordinates in angstroms.
  • The first non-comment line is what disambiguates them — a bare integer means chemistry, three numbers mean geometry.
  • There is no header, no units and no coordinate-system declaration in the point-cloud form.
  • Files are frequently gigabytes, because ASCII coordinates cost roughly ten times what binary does.

When to use XYZ

  • Surveying and LiDAR exports where the receiving tool wants plain coordinates
  • Molecular structures handed between chemistry packages
  • Quick inspection or scripting against a point set with ordinary text tools
  • Converting raw coordinates into PLY or glTF for viewing

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Readable and writable by anything, including a spreadsheet or a shell script
  • No parser required — splitting on whitespace is the whole implementation
  • Universally accepted as a lowest common denominator

Limitations

  • Two unrelated formats share the extension, which routinely confuses tools and people
  • No units, no coordinate system and no metadata of any kind in the geometry form
  • Very large and slow to read compared with any binary point format

Compatibility

CloudCompare, MeshLab, QGIS, Open3D and most survey software read the geometry form; Avogadro, VMD, Open Babel and the major quantum-chemistry packages read the chemical form. Novus Convert detects which it has been given and converts to PLY, GLB and glTF as genuine point primitives. A chemical file converts too, but the page warns plainly that element identity and molecular meaning are lost — only the atom coordinates survive as points.

The chemical form's comment line and element symbols are read but cannot be represented in a point-cloud target.

Convert XYZ to another format

Convert other formats to XYZ