Viewers

Swyvl opens every supported file in a browser-based viewer. The right viewer is picked automatically when your file uploads — no setup, no plugins, no app install.

What opens as what

Your file	What you see
Point clouds — LAS, LAZ, E57, PLY, PTX, PTS, XYZ	3D point cloud viewer with orbit, pan, zoom, and measurement tools
3D models — OBJ, FBX, GLB, GLTF, STEP, IGES	3D model viewer with orbit and zoom
BIM — IFC	BIM viewer
CAD — DXF, DWG	2D CAD viewer with layer support
Geospatial vector — GeoJSON, SHP, GPX, GeoPackage	Interactive 2D map
Geospatial 3D — KMZ, KML, CZML, 3D Tiles ZIP	3D globe
Orthomosaic — GeoTIFF	Slippy map with the orthomosaic overlaid
360° images and video — equirectangular JPG/PNG/MP4/MOV	Spherical 360° viewer with click-and-drag
Drone video + GPS — MP4 + SRT/GPX	Split-screen: video on one side, live GPS map on the other
Images — JPG, PNG, WebP	Image viewer with pan and zoom
Video — MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM	HTML5 video player
PDF	Multi-page PDF viewer
Gaussian splats — SPLAT, KSPLAT, SPZ, SPLZ, splat-PLY	3D Gaussian splat viewer
Large point datasets — CSV, large GeoJSON	Performance-optimised 2D map

If Swyvl picks the wrong viewer for a file, you can change it in the file detail panel — open the file, choose a different viewer from the Viewer dropdown.

Collection filmstrip

When viewing files within a collection, a filmstrip strip appears at the bottom of the viewer showing thumbnails of other files in the same collection. Click any thumbnail to switch to that file without returning to the Files tab. Use arrow keys to navigate when the filmstrip is expanded.

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Point clouds

Formats: LAS, LAZ, E57, PLY, PTX, PTS, XYZ

Renders large point clouds in the browser — billions of points are supported. Detail streams in as you orbit and zoom.

Controls:

• Left drag — orbit
• Right drag / middle drag — pan
• Scroll — zoom
• Double-click — set orbit centre

Tips:

• If the point cloud appears as a small dot when first opened, zoom in with scroll — Potree starts with the full bounding box visible
• Use the measurement tools in the toolbar for distances and areas
• Adjust point size in the sidebar if points appear too dense or too sparse

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3D models

Formats: OBJ, FBX, GLB, GLTF (STEP and IGES are converted to GLB on upload)

Full orbit, pan, and zoom controls. Textures, materials, and lighting are applied automatically from the file.

Controls:

• Left drag — orbit
• Right drag — pan
• Scroll — zoom

Set start view: Navigate to your preferred camera position then click Set start view in the toolbar to save it and update the thumbnail.

Tips:

• GLB is preferred for delivery — it embeds textures in a single file and is the most efficient format for the browser
• OBJ and FBX are supported directly — no conversion required before upload
• glTF packages with separate texture files can be uploaded as a ZIP — Swyvl extracts and serves all referenced textures

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BIM models

Formats: IFC

Renders Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) BIM models in the browser. Compatible with exports from Revit, ArchiCAD, Tekla, and other BIM software. Full 3D orbit, pan, and zoom controls.

Controls:

• Left drag — orbit
• Right drag — pan
• Scroll — zoom

Set start view: Navigate to your preferred perspective then click Set start view in the toolbar.

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CAD drawings

Formats: DXF (DWG is converted to DXF automatically on upload)

Renders 2D CAD drawings — lines, arcs, polylines, circles, and splines from as-built surveys, site setout plans, and site drawings. Layers are preserved. Pan and zoom controls.

Controls:

• Left drag — pan
• Scroll — zoom

Tips:

• DXF is the open exchange format for CAD — DWG (Autodesk’s proprietary format) cannot be viewed in the browser and is offered as download-only
• Most CAD applications (AutoCAD, MicroStation, BricsCAD) can export to DXF

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Geospatial vector

Formats: GeoJSON, SHP (Shapefile), GPX, GeoPackage

Displays 2D vector data on an interactive base map. Polygons, lines, and points are all rendered. The map auto-fits to your data.

Controls:

• Drag — pan
• Scroll — zoom
• Double-click — zoom in

Notes:

• SHP: Upload shapefiles as a ZIP containing all component files (.shp, .dbf, .prj, .shx). Swyvl extracts the ZIP automatically. For best results, ensure coordinates are in WGS84 (EPSG:4326).
• GPX: Track logs from GPS devices and drone flights. Shows the track as a line with waypoints as points.

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Geospatial 3D

Formats: KMZ, KML, CZML, 3D Tiles (ZIP)

Renders data on a 3D globe with satellite imagery and real-world terrain elevation. Imagery and terrain are provided by Swyvl — no API keys or third-party accounts needed.

Controls:

• Left drag — rotate globe
• Right drag — zoom
• Middle drag / scroll — zoom
• Double-click — fly to location

3D Tiles: Upload your 3D Tiles as a ZIP file. Swyvl extracts and loads it on the 3D globe automatically. Photogrammetry meshes, instanced models, point clouds, and composite tilesets are all supported. Gaussian Splats packaged as 3D Tiles render natively with terrain context.

Set start view: Fly to the camera angle you want, then click Set start view in the toolbar to save it and capture a thumbnail.

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Orthomosaics

Formats: GeoTIFF (.tif, .tiff)

Displays georeferenced rasters as a layer on an interactive 2D map. Large orthomosaics stream tile-by-tile. The original file is always preserved for download.

Controls:

• Drag — pan
• Scroll / +/− buttons — zoom
• Double-click — zoom in

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Drone video with GPS

Formats: MP4 + SRT sidecar, MP4 + GPX sidecar

Displays drone video alongside a live GPS map showing the drone’s flight path.

Layout:

• Left panel: Video playback with standard controls
• Right panel: Interactive map with the full flight path drawn as a line and a marker that moves with the video

How it works:

1. Upload a DJI .mp4 video alongside its .srt GPS subtitle file (or a .gpx track) in the same batch
2. Swyvl detects the sidecar, extracts the GPS track, and opens the multi-panel viewer
3. As the video plays, the map marker follows the drone’s position in real time

Tip

The multi-panel viewer is also used when video files have embedded GPS metadata (e.g. GoPro with GPS enabled). No sidecar file is needed in that case.

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360° viewer

Formats: Equirectangular JPG, PNG (images), MP4, MOV (video)

Renders 360° panoramic images and video in an interactive spherical view. Click and drag to look around. Scroll to zoom.

Swyvl automatically assigns the 360° viewer to equirectangular files from cameras such as the Ricoh Theta and similar 360° cameras.

Controls:

• Click and drag — look around
• Scroll — zoom in/out
• Double-click — reset view

GPS map overlay: If the file contains GPS metadata, a minimap can be shown alongside the 360° view. Use the map toggle in the toolbar.

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Large point datasets

Formats: CSV (with coordinate columns), large GeoJSON

Renders thousands of points on a 2D map. Optimised for performance on large feature collections.

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Gaussian splat viewer

Formats: SPLAT, KSPLAT, SPZ, SPLZ, PLY (Gaussian splat)

Renders 3D Gaussian Splat captures — photorealistic real-time 3D scenes created through photogrammetry. Full orbit, pan, and zoom controls.

Controls:

• Left drag — orbit
• Right drag — pan
• Scroll — zoom

Set start view: Navigate to the angle you want, then click Set start view in the toolbar. This saves the camera position and generates a new thumbnail from the current view. The next time the file is opened — by you or a client on a share link — it starts from that exact position.

Spark splat viewer (PLY override)

Formats: PLY (Gaussian splat)

An alternative high-performance Gaussian splat viewer for PLY files. Sometimes faster than the standard splat viewer on very large files.

Controls:

• WASD — move through the scene
• Mouse drag — look around
• Scroll — zoom
• Q / E — move up / down

Set start view: Same as the standard Gaussian splat viewer — navigate to your preferred angle then click Set start view in the toolbar.

To switch a PLY file to the Spark viewer, use the Viewer selector in the file detail panel.

Tip

Preparing splat files for upload:

Use SuperSplat (free, browser-based) to prepare your Gaussian splat files before uploading to Swyvl:

1. Open your PLY splat file in SuperSplat
2. Clean up — remove floaters, crop to the area of interest
3. Export as compressed PLY — File → Export → select “Compressed PLY (.ply)” for smaller file sizes (typically 5-10x reduction)
4. Upload the compressed file to Swyvl

Compressed PLY files load faster in the viewer and use less storage. The visual quality difference is minimal.

Supported splat formats:

• .splat — raw Gaussian splat format
• .ksplat — compressed Gaussian splat (KSplat format)
• .spz — Niantic SPZ compressed format
• .splz — compressed splat ZIP format
• .ply — PLY files containing Gaussian splat data (auto-detected from file header)

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Image viewer

Formats: JPG, PNG, WebP

Pan and zoom with full-resolution viewing. Metadata (EXIF GPS, capture date, camera info) is shown in the sidebar where available.

If the image has GPS coordinates, a minimap is shown in the viewer.

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Video player

Formats: MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM

Standard HTML5 video player with playback controls. MP4 with H.264 encoding is recommended for maximum browser compatibility.

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PDF viewer

Formats: PDF

Multi-page PDF viewer with page navigation, zoom, and download.

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No viewer available

If a file shows “No viewer available”:

1. The format may not be supported for in-browser viewing — the file can still be downloaded
2. The file may still be processing — wait 60 seconds and refresh

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Terrain and imagery

Satellite imagery and terrain elevation are provided by Swyvl — no API keys or third-party accounts needed. See Workspace & branding for details.