linework

A tiny true-3D renderer for annotated technical drawings, output as plain SVG strings. Rotate → project → depth-sort → paint. Zero dependencies, ~180-line core, fully tested.

▶ Try the live demo — drop a 3D model, watch it become a drawing

The lantern above was imported from a glTF mesh and rendered by the library itself, in Node, with zero client JavaScript. On the live demo it orbits under your pointer — and you can drop your own model.

Why

The category is empty. WebGL libraries (three.js) make shaded surfaces easy and annotated linework painful — thin strokes, dash patterns, line-weight hierarchy, text callouts are all fights. Pseudo-3D toys (Zdog — last release 2019) can't do text or fine-grained depth sorting. Nothing ships "parametric technical illustration": exploded diagrams, dimension lines, balloons, title blocks. This does exactly that, and nothing else.

• The classic pipeline, honestly implemented — 3D points → yaw/pitch rotation → perspective projection → painter's-algorithm depth sorting per frame → SVG string. Paint order is computed, never authored.
• Shapes built for drawings, not games — multi-stroke paths (hollow-tube outlines as one shape), discs that project to correct ellipses, backface-culled boxes, per-object sorting for animated parts.
• SVG strings are the point — themeable with CSS variables, crawlable, printable, accessible, and renderable server-side at build time.
• Styling is yours — the library emits class names you define; it never dictates a look.

The sketch layer — DX is a feature

Authoring should read like drafting, not like assembling tuples. Context blocks scope parts, tags and layering over everything drawn inside them:

import { sketch, scene } from "linework/sketch";

const s = sketch({ yaw: 0.5, pitch: 0.16, f: 1500, cx: 460, cy: 320 });

s.box(300, 380, 320, 42, 40, 80);                    // base plate

s.part("housing", 'class="prt"', () => {             // one <g>, one sort unit
  s.cyl([460, 218], 70, 34, -34, "ink");             // bearing body
  s.bias(0.6, () => s.cap([460, 218], 34, 32, "ink")); // bore, layered above
});

s.tube(9).M([180, 400]).Q([300, 420], 20, [420, 340], 10); // hollow frame tube

s.note("320 mm", [460, 452]);                        // paper-space annotation
el.innerHTML = s.render();                           // depth-sorted SVG

For animation, scene() gives you the frame-loop idiom — define once, replay with a new view per frame:

const draw = scene((s, { explode }) => { /* build with s.* */ });
el.innerHTML = draw({ yaw, pitch, f: 1500, cx: 460, cy: 320 }, { explode });
// ~1 ms for a few hundred shapes — drag-to-orbit rebuilds are free

Prefer bare metal? linework exports the raw Shape types + render()/xform(), and linework/helpers sits in between.

Import a 3D model → a technical drawing

linework/import turns a 3D mesh — glTF/GLB, OBJ, STL, or a three.js BufferGeometry — into linework strokes. A shaded model carries no lines — its form lives in where the surface bends — so it recovers exactly the lines a draftsperson would draw: the outline and the hard creases, nothing from the smooth interior of a face. The result drops straight into render() and rotates like any other scene.

(That lantern in the header is exactly this: a CC0 glTF — 5,394 triangles of shaded mesh → ~2,500 feature edges → rotatable line drawing, in one meshToShapes() call. Drop your own .glb on the demo.)

import { parseGLB, meshToShapes } from "linework/import";
import { render } from "linework";

const meshes = parseGLB(await file.arrayBuffer());          // parseOBJ · parseSTL · fromBufferGeometry
const shapes = meshToShapes(meshes, {
  angle: 25,                                                // crease threshold°
  fit: { cx: 400, cy: 300, size: 440 },                     // fit into a screen box
});
el.innerHTML = render(shapes, { yaw: 0.6, pitch: 0.35, f: 1400, cx: 400, cy: 300 });

featureEdges(mesh) is exposed on its own if you want the raw edge list. Vertices are welded by position first, so meshes that split a shared edge across primitives still sort as one surface. No Draco, and geometry-only — textures and materials are ignored.

Formats:

Input	Function	Notes
glTF / GLB	parseGLB(buffer)	embedded buffers, node transforms; no Draco
OBJ	parseOBJ(text)	fan-triangulated
STL	parseSTL(buffer | text)	binary or ASCII; the 3D-printing format
three.js	fromBufferGeometry(geo)	reads the typed arrays; no three.js dependency
STEP / IGES	fromOcct(result)	via occt-import-js (OpenCASCADE WASM) — you bring the kernel; linework stays tiny

STEP is a trimmed-NURBS B-rep, not a mesh — tessellating it is a job for a real CAD kernel, so linework doesn't embed one. occt-import-js returns meshes that fromOcct() maps straight in, keeping the ~6 MB kernel an optional peer rather than a dependency.

Imported geometry is just shapes — so you layer paper-space annotations (overall dimensions, callout balloons, a title block) over an import exactly as you would a hand-authored scene. The live demo dimensions the lantern automatically from its mesh bounds and balloons its extreme features; toggle Annotate to see the annotation layer come and go over the same rotating model.

Coordinates (read this once)

Field	Meaning
x	right, in your SVG's user units
y	down — screen convention, not math convention
z	toward the viewer; negative recedes and depth-dims
view.yaw	rotation about the vertical axis through cx (radians)
view.pitch	rotation about the horizontal axis through cy; positive looks down
view.f	perspective focal distance — k = f/(f−z); larger = flatter
bias	per-shape depth nudge for deliberate coplanar layering

Paper space: annotations (dimensions, balloons, title blocks) are strings appended after the sorted scene — they never rotate, exactly like a real drawing's notes. sketch.pt(p, z) projects model points so leaders can pin paper to model.

Known limitation (shared by every painter's-algorithm renderer): cyclic overlaps can't sort correctly — split long members into segments if you construct one.

Server-side rendering

render() is a pure string function. Static site generators can emit finished 3D-looking diagrams with zero client JS:

import { writeFileSync } from "node:fs";
writeFileSync("diagram.svg", wrapInSvgTag(render(shapes, view)));

The lantern hero above is generated exactly this way — scripts/gen-import-demo.mjs imports the committed model and renders the SVG in Node (npm run images); the demo page runs the same code live. For a hand-authored server-side example, see docs/scene.js.

Install & test

npm i linework        # ESM, types included
npm test              # projection, parallax, paint order, culling,
                      # sketch scoping, and feature-edge extraction

Compatibility

ESM-only (no CJS build), Node ≥ 18, zero runtime dependencies. Which entry runs where:

Entry	Runs in	Notes
linework · /helpers · /sketch · /import	Node and browser	pure functions; import uses TextDecoder/DataView, both universal
linework/orbit	browser only	uses requestAnimationFrame, matchMedia, performance

render() and the importers run server-side, so you can generate diagrams at build time (see Server-side rendering); only the drag-to-orbit helper needs a browser. Imported files are treated as untrusted input — see SECURITY.md for the parsing threat model.

Versioning: while 0.x, minor releases may contain breaking changes and patch releases won't. From 1.0, standard semver — a breaking change to the public API bumps the major. Releases publish from CI with provenance.

Contributing

Small, dependency-free, and test-driven on purpose — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Changes are tracked in CHANGELOG.md. Issues and PRs welcome.

Provenance

Extracted from Fitment — a "will that part fit your bike?" planner whose exploded service-manual drawings are rendered entirely by this engine, live-orbitable, with dimension callouts in paper space over the rotating model.

License

MIT © Isaac Rowntree