DAE Viewer

Open COLLADA (.dae) files with this DAE viewer

This DAE viewer opens COLLADA .dae files in your browser, with their materials, textures and animations. Drop the .dae on the page, together with its texture images if it has any, and the scene appears. Nothing is uploaded and there is nothing to install.

It reads COLLADA (.dae) files as written by SketchUp, Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D and most other programs.

What COLLADA is and where you meet it

COLLADA (COLLAborative Design Activity) was started by Sony Computer Entertainment as an open exchange format for game assets, and has been maintained by the Khronos Group since 2006. A .dae file is XML: readable text describing geometry, materials, scene hierarchy, cameras, lights, skins and animation.

Game pipelines have mostly moved on to FBX and glTF, but DAE is still common in a few places:

SketchUp

Exports DAE, and the models inside Google Earth KMZ files are DAE.

Robotics

ROS and Gazebo robot descriptions (URDF) often use DAE meshes for the visual parts of a robot.

Second Life and OpenSimulator

Custom mesh is uploaded as DAE.

Mixamo

Offers DAE as a download option alongside FBX.

Older asset libraries

Many free model sites from the 2000s and 2010s offer DAE downloads.

Opening a DAE with its textures

A .dae file references its textures by path in an "init_from" element; the images are separate files. Select the .dae and its images together, or drag them all onto the page at once. The viewer finds the images by file name, so the folder they were in does not matter. Without them, the model loads with its base colors but no textures.

A Google Earth .kmz file is a ZIP archive. Rename it to .zip, extract it, and open the .dae from the "models" folder together with the images next to it.

Common DAE problems

Wrong size: COLLADA files declare their unit in the header (SketchUp, for example, typically writes inches), and the viewer applies it, so the info panel shows the size in meters. If it is still off, the exporter wrote the wrong unit.

Model lying on its side: the header also says whether the file is Y-up or Z-up, and Z-up files, common from SketchUp and CAD tools, are turned upright when they load. A model that still lies on its side was exported with the wrong axis in the header; re-export it from the source program.

Animation: skeletal and node animation stored in the file can be played from the clip list. If nothing is listed, the animation was not exported or was stored in a way this viewer does not read.

Files that open in one program but not another: COLLADA is a large specification, and exporters only write parts of it, sometimes with quirks. If a file fails here and you have the source program, re-exporting with default settings, or exporting to FBX or glTF instead, usually helps.

For the format that replaced COLLADA in most game pipelines, see the FBX Viewer.

Converting DAE to a modern format

Use "Download as" to save the model as GLB, glTF, OBJ, STL, PLY or USDZ. GLB is the natural successor: it comes from the same Khronos Group, keeps meshes, materials, textures and animation, and is far smaller than the equivalent XML. OBJ and STL keep only the geometry. An STL takes the pose on screen, so set Animation to Stopped first to get the rest pose; an OBJ of a rigged character is always written in its rest pose, usually a T-pose.

To bring a COLLADA model to the web or a current engine, use DAE to GLB.