USDZ to GLB

USDZ to GLB: take Apple 3D files anywhere

USDZ is Apple's packaging of Pixar's Universal Scene Description: a zip-style archive with the model and its textures inside. It's what iPhone and iPad produce and consume. LiDAR and photogrammetry scanning apps export it, Reality Composer and Object Capture create it, RoomPlan scans come out as USDZ, and AR Quick Look galleries on shopping sites serve it.

Outside Apple's world, USDZ support is patchy. Android's Scene Viewer, most web 3D libraries and many game engine pipelines expect glTF. Converting USDZ to GLB turns an iPhone scan or a Quick Look model into a single file that works on Android, on the web, and in tools like Blender, Unity or Godot through their glTF importers. It runs in your browser and the file is not uploaded.

What comes across

USD is a very large specification, much of it aimed at film pipelines. The converter reads the part that matters for single models.

Meshes

Kept, with their transforms.

PBR materials

Kept. USD's preview surface (base color, metallic, roughness, normal, occlusion, emissive, opacity) maps closely onto glTF's metallic-roughness material.

Textures in the archive

Kept and embedded in the GLB.

Animation

Simple transform and skeletal animation is read and written to the GLB. The converter's preview doesn't play it; open the file in the USDZ Viewer to watch it.

Variants and complex composition

Not fully supported. A file with several variants (colorways, configurations) or references to other USD files may show only one version or come in incomplete.

AR behaviors, anchors, audio

Reality Composer's interactions, anchoring rules and sounds have no place in glTF and are dropped.

How to convert USDZ to GLB

1. Drop the .usdz onto the converter. Plain .usda, .usdc and .usd files open too, but textures are read from inside a .usdz archive, so use the .usdz when you have one.

2. Check the preview. Make sure the textures are there and that the model is complete.

3. Convert and download the .glb. USDZ and glTF are both Y-up, so no axis fix is needed.

To get a USDZ off an iPhone, AirDrop it to your computer or save it to Files and open this page on the phone itself. Conversion works in mobile browsers, though very large scans are easier on a desktop.

Common questions about the result

Most USDZ files from scanning apps and product configurators convert cleanly. These are the cases that don't.

To look at a USDZ on Windows or Android without converting, open it in the USDZ Viewer.

Model is incomplete or a different color

The file uses variants or references other files. Open it in Reality Composer or another USD tool, flatten it or pick the variant you want, and export a new USDZ.

Scan has a huge file size

Scanning apps use large textures and dense meshes. The GLB holds the same data, so it's large too. Reduce texture size or decimate the mesh before converting if it's going on the web.

Size looks wrong in the target

Check the bounding box in the preview's info panel. A file that declares its unit (metersPerUnit) is scaled to meters, which glTF tools expect. If the size is still off by a factor of 100, the model was authored in centimeters without saying so. Scale it in the target app.

Animated model is static

Only simple transform and skeletal animation is read. Reality Composer behaviors and other animation are not; for such a model, find a glTF or FBX version from the original source.

USDZ and GLB side by side

Both formats hold a PBR model with its textures in one file, and both normally work in meters with Y up. The difference is who supports them. USDZ is the native format of Apple's AR and is what iOS Quick Look opens. GLB is the open Khronos standard that the web, Android, and most engines read. Many sites ship both: GLB for everyone, USDZ for iPhone AR. If you have one, you can make the other.

Need the reverse for an iPhone AR link? Use GLB to USDZ.