BVA File

What are BVA files and how to open them

Are you having problems opening a BVA file or are you simply curious about its contents? We're here to explain the properties of these files and provide you with software that can open or handle your BVA files.

What is a BVA file?

A .BVA file is a Biovision Action Data file.

Biovision Action Data files store motion capture data representing a skeleton's segments (bones), tracking their translation, rotation, and scale over time. These files were developed by Biovision as an older, simpler way to deliver motion data to clients, before the more complex BVH format was introduced. The format supports whole-segment motion without encoding a skeletal hierarchy, so each bone's motion is independent.

The files are plain ASCII text. Each segment (referred to as "Segment") begins with its name, followed by a "Frames:" line giving the total number of frames, then a "Frame Time:" line specifying seconds per frame (sampling rate). Next come two lines that list the channel types - translations in X, Y, Z; rotations in X, Y, Z; and scale in X, Y, Z - and their units such as INCHES or DEGREES. After that, one motion data sample per frame; each frame is a line with nine numeric values in order matching the channel list. Scale is often uniform (same in X, Y, Z) and has limited effect without hierarchy.

Because no skeleton hierarchy is included, there are no parent-child links between segments: each segment's transformation is relative to the world coordinate system. The global "up" direction is always the positive Y axis, and each segment extends along the negative Y axis.

Files can be identified by specific signatures: they start with the ASCII header "Segment: " at offset zero, and typically contain key strings such as "FRAME TIME", "FRAMES", "INCHES", "XSCALE", "YSCALE", "ZSCALE", "XTRAN", "YTRAN", "ZTRAN", "XROT", "YROT", and "ZROT" somewhere in the body.

How to open BVA files

Important: Different programs may use files with the BVA file extension for different purposes, so unless you are sure which format your BVA file is, you may need to try a few different programs.

While we have not verified the app ourselves yet, our users have suggested a single BVA opener which you will find listed below.

Last updated: August 25, 2026

Various apps that use files with this extension

These apps are known to open certain types of BVA files. Remember, different programs may use BVA files for different purposes, so you may need to try out a few of them to be able to open your specific file.

Help us help others

File.org helps thousands of users every day, and we would love to hear from you if you have additional information about BVA file formats, example files, or compatible programs. Please use the links below or email us at submit@file.org to discuss further.