Export a room scan as GLB, USDZ or OBJ: which format for which job

One model, three containers

All three exports are built from the same 3D model — the one you see in the app's 3D view. They differ only in how that model is packaged and which software knows how to open it. Whichever you pick, you get:

• Walls, floors, ceilings and openings with their textures. If you captured with texture baking, that is the photographic texture of the real room; if you scanned without it, the app's own materials (oak floor, painted plaster) are baked in, so the model never arrives as a grey blob.
• Real-world scale. The geometry is measured by the LiDAR sensor and written in metres, so a 4 m wall imports as 4 m and stays measurable in whatever you open it with.
• Furniture as simple coloured boxes at the right size and position — enough to keep the layout readable, light enough to replace with real models when you are staging.
• What is on screen. Turn ceilings off in the app and the export leaves them out, so you get the open-top doll's-house view instead of a sealed box you have to cut into.

GLB — the general-purpose one

GLB is the binary form of glTF, the format most of the 3D world has settled on for finished models. It is a single self-contained file: geometry, materials and textures all inside, nothing to keep together. Blender, Cinema 4D, Unity, Unreal, Godot, three.js, Windows 3D Viewer and virtually every online viewer open it directly.

If you have no specific reason to pick another format, pick this one. It is also what the FloorLens web viewer runs on, so a GLB behaves in your own tools exactly as the shared link behaves for your clients.

USDZ — the Apple one

USDZ is Apple's single-file 3D format, and its trick is AR Quick Look: send someone a USDZ and they tap it in Messages, Mail, Files or Safari, and the model opens full screen on their iPhone or iPad — then, with one more tap, stands in the room in front of them at real size. No app to install and no account.

That makes it the format to send to a client rather than to a colleague. It also opens in Preview and Quick Look on a Mac, so a USDZ works as an "attach to email and it just opens" model in a way GLB still does not.

OBJ — the universal one

Wavefront OBJ is decades old and reads almost everywhere, which is exactly why it is here: architecture and CAD tools that shrug at newer formats — SketchUp, Rhino, 3ds Max, older CAD seats, university lab machines — will take an OBJ without argument.

The format cannot store textures inside itself, so FloorLens delivers it as a .zip containing the .obj geometry, the .mtl material file and the texture images. Unzip all of it into one folder and import the .obj from there — if you move the file out on its own, it opens untextured.

Who uses this, and for what

Interior designers and 3D artists

Modelling an existing apartment by hand from photos and a tape measure is a day's work. Importing a GLB is a minute. Bring the scan into Blender or Cinema 4D as an accurate shell, delete the box furniture, drop in real furniture models, light it and render — the walls, windows and ceiling heights are the client's actual ones, so the render is a proposal rather than an illustration.

Architects, renovators and trades

An as-built model is the starting point for any renovation drawing. OBJ into SketchUp or Rhino gives you something to trace over, snap to and check clearances against, with the option of the floor plan and the PDF alongside it. For a bid or a site record, a scan you can rotate beats a folder of photos nobody can measure.

Estate agents and virtual staging

Staging companies and freelance 3D artists usually ask for a model or a set of measured photos before they quote. A GLB answers both. And USDZ is the one to keep in your pocket for viewings: text the model to a buyer who could not attend and they can walk around the flat on the train home — or, if you also share the scan as a web link, skip the file entirely.

Furniture retailers and fit checks

Will the wardrobe fit in the alcove, and can you actually get it round the corner? Open the USDZ in AR, or drop the GLB next to a furniture model in any 3D app, and the answer takes seconds instead of a second site visit. The same trick works for kitchen units, sofas that have to come up a stairwell, and anything sold by the millimetre.

Game, VR and XR developers

Real interiors are tedious to author and expensive to license. A GLB drops straight into Unity, Unreal or Godot as a blockout of a genuine apartment, at genuine scale — useful for level greyboxing, for VR walkthrough prototypes, and for testing how a space feels before anyone models it properly.

Web developers

A GLB and a few lines of <model-viewer> or three.js put a rotatable 3D room on a property page, a portfolio or a university site — self-hosted, no third-party viewer, no subscription attached to the listing.

Documentation, insurance and teaching

A dated, measurable model of a property is a good record: condition before a tenancy, a room before demolition, a site before the scaffolding goes up. And for anyone teaching surveying, BIM or 3D modelling, a phone-made scan is the cheapest way to give a class twenty different real buildings to work on.

How to export

1. Open a scan and switch to the 3D view.
2. Set the view up the way you want it exported — in particular, turn ceilings off if you want an open-top model.
3. Tap Share → Export 3D Model, then choose GLB, USDZ or OBJ.
4. Send it, save it to Files, or AirDrop it to your Mac. OBJ arrives as a .zip — unzip the whole thing before importing.

Which one should you pick?

• Working on it yourself in 3D software? GLB.
• Sending it to someone with an iPhone? USDZ.
• Feeding a CAD or architecture tool? OBJ.
• Putting it on a website? GLB.
• Not sure? GLB, and convert later — everything reads it.

The export stays on your phone

Exporting is a local operation: the file is generated on the device from the scan already on it, with no upload and no account, and it goes wherever the iOS share sheet sends it. Nothing is copied to us on the way, which is the same principle the rest of the app is built on — see Swiss privacy by design.

The short version

• GLB — self-contained, opens everywhere modern. The default choice.
• USDZ — tap-to-view in AR on iPhone, iPad and Mac. The one to send to clients.
• OBJ — a .zip with textures alongside, for CAD and older software.
• All three carry textures, real-world scale and your ceiling toggle.
• Exporting is local — no upload, no account.