Why Wikimedia Commons only takes STL, for now

Commons currently accepts 3D model uploads only as binary STL, specifically binary, not the older ASCII/STLA variant. STL is a geometry-only format: no color, no texture, no material data. Whatever surface detail a capture has, none of it survives an STL export.

Full-color glTF support for 3D uploads is publicly planned on Commons but hasn't shipped. Until it does, anything going there loses its texture on the way in, no matter how good the source capture was.

The practical workaround: dual-host. Geometry goes to Commons as STL, satisfying the archive's actual requirement. The full textured model, where one exists, stays hosted elsewhere, linked back from the same record. Two files, two purposes: one for the permanent public archive, one for seeing the thing.

Worth knowing before a capture ever reaches Commons, not after. It changes nothing about how to capture, but it does change what "done" looks like for a submission.