meshfile library

About

Meshfile is a simple C library for reading and writing 3D mesh file formats. It reads/writes:

• Indexed triangle meshes, multiple objects per file, with a number of optional pre-defined vertex attributes. No quads, n-gons, strips, or fans.
• Materials with a number of common pre-defined material attributes, each optionally combined with a texture map (filename/path).
• Optional transformation node hierarchy.

Animations are explicitly outside of the scope of this library.

File formats

Here's a list of currently supported file formats, and any caveats for each one.

• Wavefront OBJ
• JTF (Just Triangle Faces): http://runtimeterror.com/tech/jtf
• GLTF (OpenGL Transmission Format): v2.0+, no embedded images.

The plan is to at least support a few other formats that are reasonably easy to implement without adding dependencies, like: milkshape3d, ply, and 3ds.

Using meshfile

There are two ways to use meshfile:

1. build and install it system-wide (make && make install). Then just include meshfile.h in your program and link with -lmeshfile.
2. drop the contents of src and include directories into a subdir of your program and build it as part of your own build. It has no dependencies, so it should be as easy as just adding the list of .c files to your build.

Meshfile being released under the terms of the GNU LGPL, the second method is only possible if your program is free software.

Please note that before v1.0 is released, there is no guarantee for API/ABI stability.

License

Copyright (C) 2025 John Tsiombikas nuclear@mutantstargoat.com

This program is free software. Feel free to run, modify and/or redistribute under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License v3, or at your option any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. See COPYING and COPYING.LESSER for details.

Build

To build meshfile on UNIX, simply run make. The meshfile library has zero dependencies other than libc. Run make install as root to install it under the /usr/local prefix. You can change the prefix by editing the first line of the Makefile.

There's also an example mesh viewer program as part of the meshfile distribution. To build and install that change into meshview and run make and make install again. For the meshview dependencies and build instructions, refer to the meshview/README.md file.