What is USDZ, and can I view my home in augmented reality?
USDZ is Apple's format for 3D models that open straight in the camera — no app installed. Send a USDZ file to an iPhone or iPad user and they can place your home model right in the middle of their own living-room floor. For Android and Windows you need a different format.
Short answer: USDZ is a 3D file format that Apple's devices can open directly — in Safari, in Messages, in the Files app — and show as an object you can walk around or place in your own room via the camera (augmented reality, or AR for short). No app needs to be downloaded first. The format only works fully on Apple devices; for Android and most other platforms, the model needs to be delivered in a different 3D format such as GLB.
What is augmented reality, in concrete terms?
Augmented reality means exactly that: the camera on your phone or tablet shows what's actually in front of you, and overlays something digital on top of the image, in real time. The digital object — a 3D model of a house, for example — is "anchored" to a spot in the real room and stays put as you move the phone around it. That's different from virtual reality, where the whole image is digital and you don't see your own living room at all.
For home models, that means you can set a scale model of a house down in the middle of the dining table and walk around it with the phone, or — depending on the setup — place the model at full size on a floor and walk through it.
What is USDZ, and why does the format exist?
USDZ is Apple's 3D file format, built for exactly this purpose: to be opened and shown as AR without a dedicated app. It packs geometry, colours and surfaces together into a single file that Apple's operating systems recognise automatically — the same way a PDF file automatically opens in a PDF reader. The format was created because existing 3D formats (like OBJ or GLB) required an app to be viewed at all — USDZ turned it into something that simply works in the phone's camera and file system.
That makes USDZ well suited to exactly the scenario where you want to share a 3D model with someone who doesn't have the app you used to create it — a buyer, a collaborator, or a contractor who just needs a quick spatial impression.
How do you open a USDZ file without any app?
If you send a USDZ file to an iPhone or iPad — by email, message or a plain file share — the recipient can typically just tap it and see it directly in the phone's built-in AR view (called AR Quick Look). There's a button to place the model in the real room in front of the camera, and one to rotate and zoom it as an object on screen, without AR. No app needs to be installed first — the feature is built into the operating system.
It's one of the rare cases where an advanced technology (real-time camera-tracked 3D) is exactly as easy for the recipient to use as opening a picture.
Can Android and Windows open the same file?
No, not the same easy way. USDZ is Apple's format and is fully supported only on iPhone, iPad and Mac. On Android and Windows, the file typically can't be opened directly in AR without a separate app that explicitly supports the format — and even there the experience is often worse than the built-in solution on Apple devices.
If a 3D model needs to be shared broadly, across platforms, a more universal 3D format like GLB or OBJ is often the safer choice — it doesn't open as easily without an app, but it isn't tied to one manufacturer's hardware. In short: USDZ for Apple recipients and AR, a different format for everything else.
What can AR be used for with a home model?
- Give a sense of scale. Seeing a model at full size on a real floor conveys a room's proportions better than a model spinning freely on a screen.
- Share with someone who can't read a floor plan. A trained eye reads lines and numbers. Most other people understand an object they can walk around much faster.
- Show a model independently of the app it was built in. The recipient needs neither a subscription nor an account — just an Apple device.
- Compare sizes. Place the model next to something familiar — a table, a door — to get a feel for the real scale.
What it can't do — the limits of AR
AR tracking is the camera's best guess at where the floor and walls are, based on visible patterns in the image — it isn't a measured reference. If you place a model "at full size", it can drift slightly relative to the real room, especially in poorly lit or plain-coloured rooms with no clear edges for the camera to track against. AR is therefore a visual tool, not a measuring tool — you can't use it to decide whether a sofa fits exactly into a niche.
The model you see in AR also isn't updated in real time: it's a snapshot of the home as it was when the model was exported. If you change something in the original app afterwards, a new USDZ file needs to be exported and shared again.
What HouseSense does
HouseSense can write the house's 3D model as a USDZ file directly from the 3D view, so it can be opened in AR on any Apple device without the app installed. The file contains the house's actual geometry — walls, roofs, rooms — but deliberately leaves out photos and AI-generated tags, so what's shared is the plain building model. For other platforms, or where a professional needs to keep working on the model, the app also supports other 3D formats such as OBJ, STL, GLB and DAE, plus DXF for the drawing itself and several point-cloud formats.
When should you choose which format?
Need to show something quickly and impressively to an Apple user with no technical background? USDZ and AR. Need a model used broadly, independent of platform, or opened in general 3D software? GLB or OBJ. Need a professional to keep drawing on the building itself? DXF. And need something measured precisely or sent to a contractor as a basis for a quote? A measured drawing or PDF, not a 3D file — 3D is for showing and understanding, not for calculating from.