STEP to PLY
Please find below the list of our other useful resources related to STEP and PLY interoperability and exchange that could help you with the STEP to PLY conversion.
STEP File
STEP (STandardized Exchange of Product) is a very popular file format for the data 3D exchange between different computer systems e.g. CAD, CAM or CAE. As the STEP geometry data are stored in a text form you can expect bigger file sizes when exporting triangular meshes with thousands of faces using the Autoconverter software. However, if your geometry defines manifold solid it will try to create optimized faceted STEP brep representation which should reduce STEP file size by one-third. The STEP file format supports colors per assembly, but without the alpha component, therefore any transparency setting will be lost in the final STEP file.
PLY File
PLY (Polygon File Format or Stanford Triangle Format) is a file format developed to store three dimensional triangles with additional properties e.g. color, normals, transparency or texture coordinates. However, Autoconverter our PLY file converter can only read and write mesh geometry without the material properties, as in the PLY file they can vary between triangle vertices. You can save PLY files in a binary or ASCII text file format, with the preference for the binary version due to a significant PLY file size saving.