What is a .CUBE file?
The .cube extension is shared by colour look-up tables and Gaussian volumetric data.
Colour LUT
- What it is
- An Adobe / IRIDAS / DaVinci Resolve colour look-up table. Analyser visualises exactly what it does - the tone-response curve, a before/after chart and an interactive 3D scatter of the colour cube - and reads its title, grid size and domain.
- How to tell it apart
- A LUT names LUT_3D_SIZE or LUT_1D_SIZE in its header text.
- Did you know
- The same .cube LUT a colourist builds in DaVinci Resolve loads unchanged into Photoshop, Premiere and OBS, because it is just a text table of input-to-output colours.
- A .cube can be either a 1D LUT - a single tone curve - or a full 3D colour cube, and the LUT_1D_SIZE or LUT_3D_SIZE line at the top declares which.
- The .cube format was created by IRIDAS, the grading company Adobe bought in 2011, which is why Adobe and DaVinci Resolve both read it.
Gaussian volumetric grid
- What it is
- A Gaussian CUBE file - a regular 3D grid of electron density or molecular-orbital values written by Gaussian and other quantum-chemistry packages. Analyser identifies it and reads the atom and grid dimensions.
- How to tell it apart
- A Gaussian cube starts with two comment lines, then an atom count and origin coordinates.
- Did you know
- A Gaussian cube stores a value at every point of a 3D grid, so one molecule's electron density can run to tens of millions of numbers.
- Every value in a Gaussian cube is in atomic units, so distances are given in Bohr radii of about 0.529 angstroms rather than the more familiar angstrom.
- The format comes from Gaussian, the quantum-chemistry program John Pople began in 1970 and which helped earn him the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- Did you know
- Analyser handles .CUBE alongside related formats such as .LOOK.
- Open a .CUBE file
- Drag a .CUBE file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It opens entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.
- Related formats
- .LOOK. See all supported file types.