ASC File Format for 3D Points

There are many complicated file formats for reading and writing 3D mesh data. However, if you work only with 3D points in your 3D geometry application, then the ASC file format is a convenient way to read, write and display point data. ASC stands for ASCII and the files have an extension of .asc. This is a text file format, where each line has the XYZ coordinates of one point, each coordinate separated by whitespace.

For example, the 4 points of a tetrahedron in the ASC format:

-0.0378297 0.12794 0.00447467
-0.0447794 0.128887 0.00190497
-0.0680095 0.151244 0.0371953
-0.00228741 0.13015 0.0232201

Point data stored as ASC files can be viewed using programs such as MeshLab.