3D Studio .3ds
Legacy 3D Studio chunks. Old, limited, and still everywhere.
What a .3ds file holds
The .3ds format comes from Autodesk 3D Studio for DOS and carries all the constraints of its era: 16-bit vertex indices cap a single mesh at 65,536 vertices, object names are limited to eight characters, and smoothing information is minimal. Despite that it never went away: decades of model libraries, architectural asset packs and CAD exporters still ship .3ds, which is usually why you are reading this.
Also seen as .prj.
Commonly seen in: 3ds Max, Blender, older asset libraries, architectural model packs.
| Data | Stored in 3DS |
|---|---|
| Geometry | Yes |
| Materials and colour | Yes |
| Texture maps | Yes |
| Animation and rigs | No |
| Scene hierarchy | Yes |
| Read here | Yes |
| Written here | Yes |
Tested against a real file
The last sweep loaded Granate.3DS from Assimp test models with its 8 sidecar files through the viewer on this site: 376 triangles across 2 meshes and 2 materials, in 1.9 seconds. Every format's result is on the test results page, run 2026-09-08.
What we put in a .3ds file we write
Geometry, per-object materials and texture coordinates. Texture image references are not written, because 3DS can only name a file it cannot carry. The format counts vertices and faces in 16 bits, so a mesh over 65,535 of either is split into parts rather than truncated, and material names are cut to the ten characters the format allows.
Convert 3DS to another format
Every pairing has a page saying what survives the trip.
Convert something else to 3DS
Other things to do with a .3ds file
Questions about 3DS
How do I open a .3ds file?
Drop it into the viewer on this site and it opens in the browser, with the scene tree, the materials and the mesh statistics. Nothing is uploaded. If you want it in another program instead, convert it to GLB, which almost everything reads.
Is 3DS a good format to archive in?
3DS stores geometry, materials and colour, texture maps, scene hierarchy. Anything outside that list will not be in the file at all, so archive the original alongside it if the surfacing or the rig matters.
Does converting 3DS lose quality?
Geometry is copied vertex for vertex, so the shape does not degrade. What gets lost is whatever the target format has no field for: convert to STL and the materials go, convert to OBJ and the animation goes. The comparison table on each converter page says exactly which.
Formats that hold the same things
Or go back to the full format reference.