structura-render

Minecraft structures, rendered like Minecraft.

Turn a Java Edition Structure NBT, Litematic or Sponge schematic into a PNG or a portable 3D model. structura-render reads the blockstates, models and textures from your own Minecraft client, so stairs stay stairs, doors keep their state, glass keeps its alpha and every export agrees with the preview.

Quick start

Try the bundled demo with the base installation:

pip install structura-render
structura-render examples demo
structura-render projections demo/demo.nbt demo/views.png
structura-render projections demo/demo.nbt demo/floor.png --views top --depth 1 4

This produces images without Minecraft resources or a graphics backend.

Install only the output you need:

pip install "structura-render[hero,usdz]"

Render a showcase image and export the same geometry:

structura-render png house.litematic house.png --transparent --orthographic
structura-render usdz house.litematic house.usdz

For Minecraft 1.21.1, the standard launcher installation is detected automatically on macOS, Linux and Windows. To use another client or resource pack, point the renderer at its .jar or extracted assets/minecraft folder:

export STRUCTURA_MINECRAFT_ASSETS="$HOME/.minecraft/versions/1.21.1/1.21.1.jar"

The jar is extracted once into the user cache. Mojang assets are never bundled, copied into the package or redistributed.

Outputs

Extras can be combined:

pip install "structura-render[hero,usdz,gltf,obj,stl]"

Every command accepts .nbt, .litematic and Sponge v2/v3 .schem natively. Legacy .schematic input is available through the legacy extra:

pip install "structura-render[hero,legacy]"
structura-render-hero castle.schematic castle.png

Preview conversion preserves the selection's bounds, authored air, block materials, connections and all entities. It does not apply datapack placement cleanup. Litematic v5–v7 supports multiple disjoint regions, signed sizes and entity positions without requiring the legacy extra. Use --region Main to render one named region. Overlaps require an explicit region choice. Other Amulet input formats are not verified by the conversion tests.

Texture-backed exporters fail clearly when client assets are unavailable, instead of silently producing a misleading result. For diagnostics only, the 3D exporters can retain the old coloured-cube fallback with --allow-flat-fallback. Hero renders expose the same choice as --no-textures.

The commands support --help without optional backends or Minecraft assets. PNG and USDZ do not require trimesh. OBJ, STL, glTF/GLB and USDZ do not install or import PyVista/VTK; only the [hero] extra needs a plotting backend. If an application previously installed [usdz] and also rendered PNGs, it should now request [hero,usdz] explicitly.

The unified command and python -m structura_render accept projections, png, glb, gltf, obj, stl and usdz. Existing commands remain supported:

python -m structura_render glb house.litematic house.glb
structura-render projections house.litematic views.png --views top north
uvx --from 'structura-render[gltf]' structura-render glb house.litematic house.glb

Python images

from structura_core import load_structure
from structura_render import render_hero, render_projection, render_projections

structure = load_structure("house.litematic", region="Main")
image = render_projection(structure, view="top", scale=8, transparent=True)
image.save("top.png")
render_projections(structure, "views.png", views=("top", "north"))
render_hero(structure, "house.png", transparent=True, orthographic=True)

All three return a Pillow image. The sheet and hero functions optionally write an output atomically; the existing destination survives an encoding failure. Projection images need neither Minecraft textures nor a graphics backend. They show the nearest non-air block cell rather than textured model geometry. An explicit structure_void is invisible. Plain projections allocate memory according to image area, without constructing a dense 3D volume.

Layers and cross-sections

floor = render_projection(structure, view="top", depth=(1, 4), transparent=True)
floor.save("floor.png")
render_projections(structure, "section.png", views=("north",), depth=(0, 1))

depth=(start, stop) includes local coordinates from start up to, but not including, stop: Y for top/bottom, Z for north/south, X for west/east. A range of width one shows one layer. Both ends must be inside that axis's bounds; the lower end must be smaller. Opposite views use the same coordinate range. The image keeps its full width, height and alignment, and the source is not modified. Supplied envelope/aura masks use the same depth range. If a sheet contains views along different axes, the range applies to each selected axis.

Notices and strict exports

export_structure(..., strict=True) and render_hero(..., strict=True) reject reported approximations before writing the output. The CLI equivalent is --strict on the PNG and 3D commands. Default mode emits a single RenderWarning, listing missing textures, unresolved block models, approximate entity models, markers and omitted entities. Repeated issues are combined and examples are capped; reusing a TextureBank retains the same notices. CLI notices go to stderr and successful output paths to stdout.

Strict mode checks reported fallback paths; it does not certify pixel-perfect Minecraft fidelity, animation, printability or game-specific entity semantics. Intentional cell-colour projections and no_textures=True images retain their explicitly requested style. Existing public calls and low-level writers remain available. Public entry points ship type information for IDE completion.

Native input and decompressed NBT each default to a 256 MiB limit in core. For larger trusted inputs, create Structure(path, max_nbt_bytes=...) or use structura_core.load_structure(..., max_nbt_bytes=...), then pass that object to the renderer. The byte guard does not bound total process memory.

Default guards are 16,000,000 output pixels (max_pixels / --max-pixels), 16,000,000 cells in a 3D bounding box (max_voxels / --max-voxels) and 2,000,000 decoded Litematic/Sponge cells (--max-blocks). Larger trusted inputs can raise these limits; choosing --region avoids allocating the empty space between distant regions. These guards are not a bound on total process memory.

Python 3D export

from structura_render import AssetContext, TextureBank, export_structure

bank = TextureBank(AssetContext("/path/to/assets/minecraft"))
output = export_structure("house.litematic", "house.glb", texture_bank=bank)
export_structure(structure, "house.usdz", texture_bank=bank)

export_structure accepts a path or an in-memory structura_core.Structure. The output extension selects .glb, .gltf, .obj, .stl or .usdz; the return value is the absolute pathlib.Path of the main file. Install only the corresponding extra. Without a bank, resource discovery follows the same rules as the CLI. A supplied bank is reused, including its isolated caches.

Optional keywords are region, allow_flat_fallback, max_blocks, max_voxels and max_atlas_size. Inputs are not edited, and a failed export preserves an existing destination. Missing assets raise ValueError; a missing backend raises ModuleNotFoundError with the matching install command. The existing 3D commands now call the same API and print the output path.

Installation diagnostics

structura-render doctor
structura-render doctor --json
structura-render doctor --assets /path/to/client.jar --render-test

Ordinary diagnostics inspect distribution metadata, resource layout and cache permissions. They do not import graphics backends, extract jars, create caches or download anything. dependencies_present means the required distributions are installed; it does not certify their imports or version compatibility. The Minecraft version comes from the client's version.json when available, and otherwise remains unknown. Layout checks do not validate every resource.

--render-test separately creates a small offscreen image in a child process with a 30-second timeout. This protects the diagnostic process from a graphics backend crash. Failed explicit graphics tests return exit code 1; ordinary reports return 0 even when an optional format is unavailable. JSON includes schema_version, package versions, resource/cache details, per-output status and the graphics test result.

Compact examples and showcase

structura-render examples ./examples
structura-render projections examples/demo.nbt demo.png
structura-render examples ./examples --showcase

The authored demo is a small house for Java 1.21.1. The optional showcase adds all 1,195 non-air block IDs in the 26.2 reference and all 162 entity IDs handled by this renderer, with labeled signs, banners, paintings, frames and equipment. Use 26.2 client resources for these catalogs. They cover representative block states and selected cases, not every property or dynamic entity variant. Technical/legacy entity fixtures and deliberately invisible blocks are included. Catalog membership is a way to inspect coverage, not a claim of exact rendering.

The three compressed inputs total about 48 KiB. coverage.json records counts and hashes. No PNG, 3D output or Minecraft resource files are bundled; create outputs when needed. Repeating the copy is safe, and modified files are never overwritten. The accompanying README explains the inputs and regeneration tools.

Diagnostic overlays

Pass ready boolean masks in the structure's local X/Y/Z coordinates:

from structura_render import ProjectionOverlays, render_projections

overlays = ProjectionOverlays(envelope=envelope_mask, cavern_aura=cavern_mask,
                              aura=aura_mask, ground_y=12)
render_projections(structure, "diagnostic.png", overlays=overlays)

render_projection accepts the same option, including transparent output. Cavern aura is translucent blue, aura is cyan, and envelope is purple with a solid contour. Side views show ground_y as a dashed line (two cells on, two off). Masks must match the structure size and have boolean dtype; inputs are not modified. Computing envelope/aura belongs to the caller's geometry layer. All fields are optional; ordinary projections retain their previous appearance.

structura-render projections house.schem views.png --ground-y 12
structura-render projections house.schem views.png --overlays masks.npz

The optional NPZ contains only envelope, aura, and/or cavern_aura arrays; write it with numpy.savez_compressed. Object arrays are rejected and archive sizes are checked against --max-blocks before loading.

Independent resources

from structura_render import AssetContext, TextureBank, render_hero

resources = AssetContext("/path/to/assets/minecraft")
bank = TextureBank(resources)
render_hero(structure, "house.png", texture_bank=bank)

A context owns JSON, texture, entity, item and font caches. Geometry builders activate the bank's context internally; nested calls and independent renders in different threads keep their resources separate. Importing runtime modules does not discover or extract assets. TextureBank() still works and resolves the environment at construction, so existing calls remain valid.

Reuse a bank/context for a series of renders. If its files change, call resources.clear() before the next render; existing banks are refreshed too. Use a new context for another root. Low-level helpers can run inside with resources.activate():. This scope is local to the current execution context, not a process-wide switch. Client jars are extracted to a temporary directory and published only when complete. Resource-pack layering and full modded client rendering are outside this API's current contract.

Texture resolution and atlas limits

Atlases retain original texture pixels and rectangular crops; HD textures are no longer reduced to 16×16. Edge padding protects UV boundaries. Tall static textures remain intact; animated block/item textures use the first frame specified by .png.mcmeta, including explicit frame dimensions.

The default atlas side limit is 2048 pixels. If images cannot fit, export fails before allocating an oversized atlas or replacing the existing output. Set max_atlas_size on hero/geometry APIs or --max-atlas-size 4096 in the CLI for a larger pack. There is no silent downsampling. Texture decoding additionally rejects images above 16,000,000 pixels. These limits do not bound all process memory; multi-page atlases remain a separate extension.

Shared geometry

geometry.TexturedMesh contains NumPy points, quads, UV coordinates, per-face alpha modes and an RGBA atlas. mesh.build_textured_geometry produces these buffers once; file exporters consume them directly. TexturedMesh.to_pyvista adapts them for image rendering. The existing build_textured_meshes function retains its PyVista return values for callers using that interface.

Format-specific materials and file writing stay in their exporters. There is no second scene graph, editing model, interactive viewer or plugin framework. New image and file formats can reuse the same geometry without importing a graphics engine.

Moving exports

GLB and USDZ are single-file exports. For .gltf or .obj, keep the model together with its generated resources when moving or sharing it:

• glTF uses a <filename>.assets/ directory;
• OBJ uses an adjacent .mtl file and a <filename>.assets/ directory;
• resource filenames are derived from their contents, so exporting another model into the same directory does not overwrite the first model's assets.

The main glTF/OBJ file is published after its resources are written. Old resources are retained when a model is replaced, since another exported model may still reference them. Paths inside the export use relative, ASCII-safe resource names, including when the model's filename contains spaces or Unicode.

What makes the output faithful

• Client-driven models. Blockstate variants, multipart conditions, parent models, element rotations, UV rotation and UV locking come from the game.
• One geometry pipeline. PNG, USDZ, glTF, OBJ and STL share the same mesh builder, so format-specific implementations do not drift apart.
• State-aware special blocks. Chests, signs, banners, beds, heads, shulker boxes, bells, decorated pots, fluids and portals use compact textured models.
• Structure entities. Paintings, populated item frames, armor stands, dropped items and the vanilla entity catalog through 26.2 remain visible.
• Correct transparency. Per-pixel alpha is preserved for glass, foliage, bars, panes, water and other cutout or translucent surfaces. glTF and USDZ group geometry into opaque, cutout and blended materials. glTF explicitly requests nearest texture filtering; OBJ includes a grayscale opacity map.
• No stale cube list. Occlusion data is derived from client model geometry.

The generic resolver follows the client data rather than a short table of guessed blocks. New JSON-modelled blocks therefore work without adding another hardcoded shape to the renderer.

Choosing Minecraft assets

STRUCTURA_MINECRAFT_ASSETS accepts either:

• a Minecraft client .jar;
• an extracted assets/minecraft directory.

When the variable is unset, the renderer first looks for assets/minecraft in the working tree and then for a launcher-installed 1.21.1 client. Cached jar content is keyed by the jar path, size and modification time, so different versions do not collide.

Minecraft 1.13 and newer use the supported asset layout. The renderer is verified end to end with 1.21.1 and 26.2. This repository's own datapack targets Java 1.21.1, so use that client when exact project parity matters.

Honest limits

Entity rendering is static. The renderer does not evaluate animation, AI, item predicates, enchantment glint, armor trims or arbitrary display transforms. Entity previews preserve identity and silhouette; they are not a replacement for Minecraft's animated renderer. Block geometry still follows the client model pipeline described above.

The base install contains structura-core, NumPy and Pillow. PyVista, OpenUSD and trimesh are installed only by the output extras that need them.

STL contains geometry only. Its exporter welds vertices and removes duplicate triangles; an isolated solid cube produces a closed, outward-facing surface. Plants, intersecting shapes and open planes may still require repair or thickening before 3D printing. STL does not retain textures or transparency.

For implementation coverage and explicit dynamic-render limitations, see docs/block-render-audit-26.2.md.