What is a .ABC file?
ABC is an Alembic file - an interchange format that bakes animated 3D geometry into a cache, so complex scenes can move between programs without their rigs.
- Did you know
- Alembic, created by Sony Pictures Imageworks and ILM, stores the result of animation rather than the setup - like recording the performance, not the puppet.
- Alembic was released as open source in 2011 and quickly became a standard hand-off format between tools like Maya, Houdini, Blender and Cinema 4D.
- By storing only the moving geometry, an Alembic cache plays back the same way no matter how complex the rig that produced it was.
- What Analyser reads
- A catch-all for rare and niche formats Analyser still identifies from their bytes: 3D caches and scans (Alembic ABC, FARO FLS/FWS), camera and design data (ARRIRAW ARX, Capture One masks, CATIA CGR), JBIG codestreams, firmware dumps (Binwalk), draw.io diagrams, OptimFROG DualStream audio, RTTTL ringtones, LaTeX style and class files, Sun Raster and Truevision TGA images, MPEG-2 streams, PVR/DVB recordings, Tiled tilesets, Windows Prefetch and Reaper project backups.
- Depth of analysis
- .ABC is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .ABC file
- Drag a .ABC file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.