| Extension | SCAD |
| Full Name | OpenSCAD |
| Type | CAD |
| Mime Type | application/octet-stream |
| Format | Binary |
A SCAD file is a modern format used for storing 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) data and is the native file format for the OpenSCAD application. The SCAD file format stores the CAD data in the form of scripts, allowing users to modify the properties of objects quite easily by modifying the various scripted parameters.
The script contained within a SCAD file enables the creation of basic shapes such as cubes, cylinders, spheres, and other more complex shapes by using special commands to merge shapes. As this is a scripted format and is designed to be manually edited, a SCAD file stores this script in human-readable plain text format.
Support for SCAD files is largely limited to the OpenSCAD software, though there are other CAD applications that support the format. Our own SCAD converter tools can convert SCAD files to other 3D model formats, such as STL.
The STL, or Standard Triangle Language, file format has been around since the '80s and is supported by most modern 3D modelling applications. In particular, the STL format has become something of a standard format within the area of 3D printing, despite the rise of more modern formats such as 3MF.
STL files come in two flavours: binary or text format. The text format is human-readable, making it easy to perform manual edits, but can lead to very large file sizes. As you can imagine, the binary format is much more compact and represents the majority of the STL files you are likely to encounter.
The format itself is very simple; the 3D model is represented by a sequential list of triangles, with each triangle defined with 3 points consisting of their X, Y, and Z positions, along with an additional vector that contains the face normal (the direction the face is pointing). There is an additional attribute block for each triangle; however, this is largely unused and thus unsupported.
