Render build123d with pyvista

Use PyVista to quickly visualize your build123d models

build123d

build123d is a "python-based, parametric, boundary representation (BREP) modeling framework for 2D and 3D CAD." If you like writing your CAD models as code (ala OpenSCAD) and you want to do it in Python, it's a strong contender.

A minimal example, generating a simple cylinder:

import build123d


cylinder = build123d.Cylinder(radius=10, height=20)

build123d includes functions for exporting to various formats, including stl.

PyVista

PyVista gives you "3D plotting and mesh analysis through a streamlined interface for the Visualization Toolkit (VTK)". It's useful for a lot of things, but for the sake of this snippet, know that it has built-in methods to render meshes.

Putting them together

Using build123d's vtk_tools, you can convert your build123d models to pyvista meshes easily.

import build123d
import build123d.vtk_tools
import pyvista as pv


cylinder = build123d.Cylinder(radius=10, height=20)

poly_data = build123d.vtk_tools.to_vtk_poly_data(cylinder)
pv_mesh = pv.wrap(poly_data)
pv_mesh.plot()

There are other tools to visualize build123d projects, but this is the simplest way to get a quick look I've found.