Machine-Readable
Papa’s Best STL Viewer icon

Papa’s Best STL Viewer

A simple application to view STL files – no bloat, blazingly fast, and highly compatible! Runs on Windows 7–10 and on Linux with Wine.

Unlike most other viewers, it supports colors and multi-object files, browses folders full of STLs easily, and needs very little resources.

Papa’s Best STL Viewer displaying Color MakerBot Gnome by silby101 on Thingiverse

Download

Updated (changes, license).

Feel free to donate if you like my program!

64-bit Setup

recommended

32-bit Setup

setup for old systems

64-bit Portable

runs without setup

32-bit Portable

for old systems

Microsoft Store

if you’d like to support me

Want to find your STL files even faster? Check out my preview thumbnail extension for Windows Explorer!

Papa’s Best STL Thumbnails displaying colored file previews in Windows Explorer

Video Guide

Michael from Teaching Tech made a video guide about the installation. He was so kind to allow me to embed it here! Installation starts at 4:46.

Easy

Free

Due to popular demand, you can also buy Papa’s Best STL Viewer from the Microsoft Store. I can’t give it away for free because Microsoft charges me for it, but it costs just a small one-time fee that’ll support development. The Store version is identical to the free version, but being a Store App adds some features:

Fast

Papa’s Best STL Viewer is the fastest STL viewer and needs little RAM. I wrote it specifically because MeshLab & Co are too slow. Compare the performance of various STL viewers loading this 116 MiB STL:

Loading Time
Papa’s Best STL Viewer
 
 0.33 s
Blaze3D
 
 0.65 s
fstl
 
 1 s
F3D
 
 1.5 s
MeshLab
 
 8 s
ADA 3D STL Viewer
 
 8 s
Slic3r
 
 8.5 s
FreeCAD
 
 10 s
STLView
 
 11 s
MiniMagics
 
 11.5 s
3D-Tool
 
 14 s
Cura
 
 30 s
KISSlicer
 
 51 s
Meshmixer
 
 74 s

Memory Demand
Papa’s Best STL Viewer
 
 252 MiB
ADA 3D STL Viewer
 
 320 MiB
Blaze3D
 
 326 MiB
fstl
 
 365 MiB
F3D
 
 421 MiB
FreeCAD
 
 544 MiB
STLView
 
 687 MiB
MiniMagics
 
 724 MiB
3D-Tool
 
 811 MiB
Slic3r
 
 986 MiB
MeshLab
 
 1.07 GiB
Cura
 
 1.08 GiB
Meshmixer
 
 1.32 GiB
KISSlicer
 
 1.41 GiB

Benchmark Details

Core i7 860 with 8 GB of RAM; AMD Radeon HD 5700; Windows 7 x64.

Programs were run thrice; the best numbers were recorded.

Loading time begins with launching the program with the file as parameter, and ends with the first UI response to user input.

Memory demand is the peak working set during loading time.

One second has been subtracted from MeshLab’s loading time for manually closing the remove duplicate vertices prompt.

Compatible

Papa’s Best STL Viewer opens countless STL variations, even where other programs fail:

Customized versions available

You design 3D prints but your customers have problems handling STL files? You want to hand them a simple viewer that just works without any setup?

Ideally, it should include your company name, display your logo, and link to your website?

Customized versions are available, like this one for Haller3D.com:

snapshot of Haller3D.com STL Viewer, a customized version of Papa’s Best STL Viewer

Also looks great in presentations and video calls!

Contact me at info@papas-best.com for pricing!

Something Missing?

Encountered a problem? Have a suggestion? Let me know: info@papas-best.com