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File formats Cympha accepts

This reference lists every file type Cympha accepts, from scans and CBCT to implant plans and Studio bundles, and what creates and opens each one in Cympha dental lab case management software.

Audience: Clinicians uploading cases, designers and lab managers opening them, and patients sending Ortho Monitoring photos back. Useful as a one-page reference when you're not sure whether a particular file belongs on a case.

You'll come away knowing: every extension Cympha understands, what produces it, what consumes it, where it sits on a case, and the common ways uploads go wrong.

Time required: Two minutes as a reference; longer if you read through every section.

Surface scans — .stl, .ply, .obj

The standard triad for any 3D surface. Cympha treats them as interchangeable in every slot that asks for a mesh.

  • Produced by any intraoral scanner (Trios, iTero, Medit, Carestream, etc.), most desktop scanners, and any mesh export from OrthoPlus / Studio.
  • Consumed by OrthoPlus (designer), Studio (clinician + designer review), and AlignerBot.
  • Where they live on a case. Uploaded by the clinician on /cases/new under any of the mesh slots — Upper arch scan, Lower arch scan, Bite registration, Facial scan. They appear in the case's file list with their original name.
  • Gotchas. A bite-registration mesh exported as one combined arch (upper + lower fused) won't register correctly — most scanners export the bite as a separate file. If the bite is wrong, expect the designer to ask you to re-export.

CBCT volumes — zipped DICOM

Cone-beam CT volumes ship as a folder of .dcm slices. Cympha accepts the .zip of that folder rather than the individual files — both because there can be hundreds of slices, and because the slices need to stay together as one ordered series.

  • Produced by any CBCT scanner that exports DICOM (most do). Zip the export folder before uploading.
  • Consumed by Studio (segmentation, implant planning) and Implant Master.
  • Where it lives on a case. Implant and ortho cases have a CBCT scan slot on /cases/new that explicitly asks for .zip. The system does not unpack the archive server-side. Cympha Studio's Open DICOM… reads a folder of DICOM files (unzip locally first); the desktop agent extracts a zipped DICOM bundle automatically before processing.
  • Gotchas. Do not rename slices inside the zip — DICOM uses internal metadata, but some tools fall back on filename order if the metadata is sparse. Also: a single .dcm (one slice) is not a volume; you need the whole series.

2D photos and X-rays — .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .dcm

Intraoral photos, facial photos, lateral cephs, and panoramic X-rays. Cympha accepts the common image formats plus DICOM for X-rays exported from a hospital PACS.

  • Produced by any phone or DSLR for photos; any digital X-ray system for cephs and panos.
  • Consumed by Studio (gallery + annotation) and the case detail viewer (inline preview).
  • Where they live on a case. The Intraoral photos, Lateral cephalogram, and Panoramic X-ray slots on /cases/new accept these. They appear inline on the case detail page.
  • Gotchas. Heic / heif from newer iPhones is not accepted — convert to .jpg first (most phones can be told to save jpg by default). DICOM X-rays from PACS can contain patient-identifier metadata — check before uploading if your jurisdiction requires de-identification.

OrthoPlus project — .gos

The project file of GuideMia OrthoPlus. One stable .gos per case carries the planning state — meshes, staged tooth positions, treatment metadata — across design phases.

  • Produced by OrthoPlus as the designer (or AlignerBot) works the case.
  • Consumed by OrthoPlus — it reopens the same project file for each further design phase.
  • Where it lives. On the design workstation. The .gos itself is not what travels to a Cympha case — the deliverables that do are the .gvw review file and the .gos.gpk transfer pack below.

Transfer pack — .gos.gpk

The pack OrthoPlus's Save for Transfer command produces when a design phase completes. The double suffix is meaningful.

  • Produced by OrthoPlus at phase completion (Save for Transfer).
  • Consumed by Cympha two ways: (1) uploaded by the desktop agent when AlignerBot finishes the appliance phase; (2) uploaded by the doctor as one of the two accepted Request changes artifacts (see the .xml section below).
  • Gotcha. The auto-approval hook is agent-only: a .gos.gpk arriving via the agent on an AlignerBot or ClearAligner.AI case sitting at Approved or Changes Requested automatically advances the case to Appliance approval. The same file dragged into the browser attaches to the case but triggers nothing — the lab sends it for approval manually.

GuideMia treatment plan view — .gvw

The viewer-ready bundle the patient (or a clinician reviewer) opens in Studio. Carries the planned tooth positions per step.

  • Produced by OrthoPlus when a designer publishes a plan view.
  • Consumed by Cympha Studio (studio.cympha.com) — the patient-side Ortho Monitoring workspace, and the clinician review workspace.
  • Where it lives. Inside the case's file list. The .gvw is what Share to Patient picks; the patient gets a presigned URL to one specific .gvw.

Companion files of a .gvw

Studio saves certain companion files next to a .gvw in cloud storage:

  • A patient's Ortho Monitoring photo round — five orientations (Front / Left / Right / Upper / Lower) bundled as a .zip.
  • A reviewer's revised case plan — saved as an .xml next to the source .gvw via Studio's cloud-upload button.

Cympha Studio refinement — .xml

An XML tooth-position file exported from Cympha Studio's 3D review. Used as a "Request changes" artefact on an AlignerBot case — free-text change requests are deliberately rejected; Cympha accepts either this Studio XML or a .gos.gpk transfer pack saved from GuideMia OrthoPlus Planner.

  • Produced by Cympha Studio when a clinician edits the proposed plan in the 3D review and exports.
  • Consumed by the design pipeline — the next design pass runs with your changes applied.
  • Where it lives. Uploaded by the clinician on the case /approve page when they click Request changes.

Implant plans — .pie, .imp

  • .pie — the GuideMia Implant (pie v6) desktop project file. Studio opens it with Open implant project… and saves implant changes back to the same file with everything else preserved, so the plan reopens cleanly in the desktop application.
  • .imp — Studio's implant-plan export (Export plan). XML metadata only — implant placements and sleeves, no meshes. Import plan re-adds placements and skips teeth that already have an implant.
  • Where they live. On implant-category cases, attached as design artifacts.

Cympha Studio project — .cyp

The Studio scene bundle: meshes, photos, CBCT links, camera pose, gallery annotations, and the doctor's treatment intent — everything that makes a Studio session reproducible.

  • Produced by Studio when a clinician picks Create Cympha Case from the hamburger menu, or when they save the session.
  • Consumed by Studio (re-open at the exact same scene). When a designer opens the case in Studio, the .cyp restores the doctor's view — camera pose, CBCT read settings, mesh colours and opacities.
  • Where it lives. Created automatically by the Create Cympha Case path, or by Save project as… in the hamburger menu.
  • Good to know. A .cyp is self-contained — it bundles the meshes, plan, CT links, gallery pictures and the viewing state, so the recipient opens onto the same picture you saved.

Free-form notes — .txt, .pdf

The Treatment notes slot on every category accepts a plain-text or PDF note. Useful for the "anything specific the clinician wants the designer to know" content that doesn't fit a structured form field.

Quick reference table

| Extension | Produced by | Consumed by | Typical slot | |---|---|---|---| | .stl, .ply, .obj | Intraoral / desktop scanners | OrthoPlus, Studio, AlignerBot | Arch / bite / facial | | .zip (DICOM) | CBCT scanner export | Studio, Implant Master | CBCT scan | | .zip (sibling) | Studio patient camera | Patient monitorings | Photo round | | .jpg, .jpeg, .png | Phone, DSLR | Case viewer, Studio | Photos | | .dcm | PACS X-ray export | Case viewer | X-rays | | .gos | OrthoPlus project save | OrthoPlus | Design workstation (not uploaded) | | .gos.gpk | OrthoPlus Save for Transfer | Cympha (agent auto-approval; Request changes) | Design | | .gvw | OrthoPlus publish | Studio (patient / review) | Design | | .xml | Cympha Studio 3D review | Design pipeline | Request changes | | .pie | GuideMia Implant desktop | Studio (full round-trip) | Implant design | | .imp | Studio Export plan | Studio Import plan | Implant plan exchange | | .cyp | Studio | Studio (round-trip) | Studio scene | | .txt, .pdf | Any | Designer | Treatment notes |

If you upload something Cympha doesn't recognise, the file still attaches but no downstream tool will know what to do with it. When in doubt, name files so a human can tell what they are (upper.stl, lower.stl, cbct.zip) — both the designer and the AI proposer use filenames as hints.

Last updated 2026-07-30.

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