STLBenchFree online FBX viewer
FBX viewer that gets the scale right
A .fbx opens here, binary or ASCII, with no Autodesk install and no account — and nothing leaves your disk. The mesh is measured in world space, after the transforms every node in the hierarchy applies, so the size shown is what the file genuinely describes rather than what its raw coordinates imply. That distinction is the whole reason FBX has a reputation for arriving at the wrong scale. Skeletons and animation are read past; you are looking at the bind pose, with its triangle budget, surface area and enclosed volume listed below.
- 100% free
- No signup
- Binary and ASCII
- Measured after transforms
- Nothing uploaded
Drag a file anywhere on this page to open it. F fits the view, W switches shading, G the grid, R spins it.
How to open an FBX file
Three steps, and the scale question is answered before anything else.
Drop the .fbx
Both flavours are read: the binary form, which is what exporters write by default, and the ASCII form, which some pipelines use because it can be diffed. Version 7000 and later is supported — that covers everything written since about 2011. Older files fail with the version named in the message, and the fix is a round trip through any current Autodesk tool or Blender.
Look at the size before anything else
FBX is the format most likely to surprise you on scale, because it stores a units-per-centimetre factor and applies its own transforms at every node. This page walks the node hierarchy and measures the mesh in world space — the size after those transforms — so the bounding box is what the file actually describes, not what the raw vertex data would suggest.
Read what came through and what did not
Materials defined inside the file are applied; textures referenced as external image files are not, for the same reason they are not in OBJ. The line under the file name states which of the three cases you have. Skeletons and animation are read past deliberately, so what you are looking at is the bind pose.
Technical specifications
| Extension | .fbx — Autodesk, binary and ASCII |
|---|---|
| Versions | 7000 and later; older files fail with the version named |
| Kept | Geometry, node transforms, materials defined inside the file |
| Read past | Skeletons, skinning, animation clips, cameras, lights |
| Textures | Only when embedded in the container, not when referenced by path |
| Units | A scale factor is stored; the bounding box here is after transforms |
Frequently asked questions
Can I open an FBX without Maya or 3ds Max?
Yes — this page reads it directly in the browser, and so does Blender if you want to edit rather than inspect. Autodesk's own FBX Review is the other free option but is a desktop install and has been unmaintained for years. What none of them can give you is a guarantee of identical interpretation: FBX is proprietary, its specification is not public, and every reader outside Autodesk is built on reverse engineering. For geometry and materials that is settled and reliable; for exotic rig features it is not.
My FBX opens at a thousand times the wrong size.
That is the classic FBX unit problem. The format records a scale factor in its header — commonly centimetres — while the tool that reads it may assume metres or millimetres, and 3ds Max, Maya and Unity have historically each had their own default. This page applies the transforms the file declares and reports the resulting world-space size, so the number here is the file's own claim about itself. If that claim is wrong, the fix belongs in the export settings rather than in a viewer.
Why does the animation not play?
Because it is read past on purpose. FBX exists largely to carry rigs and animation, and a viewer built to measure geometry has nothing sensible to report about a moving mesh — the bounding box would change every frame. The mesh is shown in its bind pose, which is the state a bounding box and a triangle count describe correctly. For playback, Blender imports FBX animation properly and is free.
Are the textures shown?
Only when they are embedded. FBX can either reference texture files by path or embed them inside the container, and exporters offer that as a checkbox — usually labelled “Embed Media”. Referenced textures cannot be reached by a browser tab holding one dropped file, exactly as with OBJ and separated glTF. The line under the file name tells you which case you have before you go looking for a problem that is not there.
Binary or ASCII — does it matter which I export?
For this page, no: both open. For your pipeline, binary is smaller and faster to load, and ASCII is readable and diffable, which is occasionally worth the fivefold size increase when you are debugging what an exporter did. One caveat worth knowing: ASCII FBX has been dropped or made awkward by several exporters over the years, so if a file has to survive an unknown pipeline, binary is the safer default.
Should I use FBX for 3D printing?
No — nothing in a printing pipeline can use what makes FBX valuable, and its scale ambiguity is a liability where a millimetre matters. Export STL for the widest compatibility or 3MF for a slicer that accepts it. If FBX is what you were handed, this page tells you the two things that decide whether conversion will work: the true size after transforms, and whether the mesh is closed. An open mesh will not slice regardless of which format it is converted into.
About FBX and why nobody agrees on its size
FBX began at Kaydara in the 1990s as the file format of a motion-capture package, passed to Alias and then to Autodesk in 2006, and became the way rigged, animated characters move between 3ds Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, Unity and Unreal. It is proprietary and undocumented: Autodesk publishes an SDK rather than a specification, and every independent reader — Blender's, three.js's, this page's — exists because people reverse-engineered the container. That works well for meshes and materials and gets progressively less certain the further into rig territory a file goes.
The scale confusion has a specific cause worth understanding. An FBX header declares UnitScaleFactor, and separately each node carries its own translation, rotation and scale, which compound down the hierarchy. A reader can honour the header, honour the node transforms, both or neither, and historically the major tools each chose differently — which is how a character arrives in Unity a hundred times too large and in Maya a hundred times too small from the same file. This page takes the least interpretive position available: it applies the transforms in the file and reports the resulting size, so the number is the file's own statement rather than a renderer's opinion of it.
For anything headed towards a printer, FBX is the wrong container and its ambiguity is the reason. A slicer needs one unambiguous unit and a closed surface, and FBX guarantees neither — see the STL viewer for what a watertight check involves, and 3MF for the format that states its unit outright. Where FBX earns its place is the job it was built for, and no other format on this site does that job at all.
Where your FBX is read
Every number on this page is worked out by JavaScript running in the tab you are reading it in. The model you open is read straight off your own disk — it is never uploaded, logged or kept, which is also why these tools carry on working after you disconnect from the network.
One clause specific to this page: FBX files are often compressed internally, and the decompressor runs in this tab alongside the parser. Nothing about that requires a server — the container is unpacked in memory and discarded with the tab.