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Block Viewer

Build your look, block by block.

A Windows Second Life® client with a Vulkan renderer. Source and releases are public under GPL-3.0-or-later. Early 0.x — fine for friends, engineers, and curious testers; not a polished product pitch.

Site	https://blockviewer.org/
Releases	https://github.com/ape-squared/Block-Viewer/releases
Feedback	https://feedback.ape-squared.github.io/Block
Discord	Release notes land in #viewer-releases

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About this project

Block Viewer is a hobby fork for friends and engineers who like open source. We ship builds when something useful lands; we are not trying to replace or compete with other viewers.

Built on Aurora Viewer

Portions of this codebase are derived from the open-source Aurora Viewer project (engine, protocol work, GPL lineage). We are grateful for that work and keep the required upstream notices.

• Block is a separate product and brand — skins, packaging, modifications, and direction of our own — not Aurora Viewer renamed.
• It is not an official Aurora release and is not affiliated with the Aurora Viewer team.
• Block is built by many contributors (maintainers, testers, and engineers in this repository’s history), just as Aurora’s lineage reflects many Aurora contributors. See NOTICE.md.
• We keep source and releases public because that is how GPL and good open-source practice work, and because Aurora’s openness is what made this possible.

Licence text and third-party credits: LICENSE.md, LICENSE, NOTICE.md.

Not affiliated with Linden Lab. Second Life® is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc.

Sibling (different repo/licence): the Block post-processing injector.

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What’s in the box

• Vulkan world rendering
• Login, destinations, MFA
• Nearby chat, IMs, groups, voice
• People / radar (including chat-range notices)
• Inventory, appearance, AO
• Environment tools (personal lighting, Edit Sky / Edit Water)
• Auto-update from GitHub Releases (zip + .sha256)
• Portable Windows zip with Uninstall.cmd

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Download (Windows)

1. Grab the latest release.
2. Unpack Block-Viewer-vX.Y.Z-windows-x64.zip and run block-viewer.exe.
3. Optional: Uninstall.cmd in that folder.

Config / cache: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ape-squared\BlockViewer\ and %APPDATA%\ape-squared\BlockViewer\

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Build from source

Rust stable (rust-toolchain.toml), Windows MSVC, Vulkan-capable GPU.

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build-block-prod.ps1
# → dist\Block-Viewer\

cargo build -p block-viewer            # debug
cargo build -p block-viewer --release  # release

Dev helpers: block-tools.cmd (Block Tools). Old aurora-tools.cmd still launches it.

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Guides

Readable on the site: Docs. Markdown sources stay in docs/ (and refresh the site + wiki on push).

Testers

• Reporting bugs
• Installing on Linux
• Experimental VR
• Experimental Windows VR
• Installing on macOS
• Updates
• Asset imports
• LiveMesh
• Motorcycle hand contacts
• IK Edit and bone contacts
• Create native animations
• Local photo poser
• Dev Toolbox

Contributing

• Translating the viewer
• Branding and interface

Technical

• RLVa implementation status
• Licences and notices

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Brand

Token	Hex
signal	#D4FF3F
data	#5BE3E8
surface-0	#0B0C0E
ink	#ECEEF0

More in docs/BRANDING.md.