G-code Toolpath .gcode
Sliced toolpaths, not a model. What the printer actually executes.
What a .gcode file holds
G-code is not a 3D model; it is the list of movement commands a slicer produced for one specific printer, bed and filament. Reading it back gives you the toolpath: the extrusion moves the nozzle will travel, layer by layer, as polylines. That is genuinely useful for inspecting or visualising a print, but it cannot recover the original solid, because the slicer threw that away.
Commonly seen in: Cura, PrusaSlicer, Bambu Studio, Marlin, Klipper, OctoPrint.
| Data | Stored in G-code |
|---|---|
| Geometry | No |
| Materials and colour | No |
| Texture maps | No |
| Animation and rigs | No |
| Scene hierarchy | No |
| Read here | Yes |
| Written here | No |
Tested against a real file
The last sweep loaded benchy.gcode from three.js examples with its 1 sidecar files through the viewer on this site: 0 triangles across 0 meshes and 2 materials, in 2.0 seconds. Every format's result is on the test results page, run 2026-09-08.
Convert G-code to another format
Every pairing has a page saying what survives the trip.
Other things to do with a .gcode file
Questions about G-code
How do I open a .gcode 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 G-code a good format to archive in?
G-code stores . 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 G-code 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.