STLViewer

A free, cross-platform viewer for STL files built with Qt6 and OpenGL 3.3.

Screenshots

Building

Dependencies

Dependency	Minimum version
CMake	3.16
Qt	6.0
OpenGL	3.3 core

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install cmake libgl-dev qt6-base-dev qt6-base-dev-tools

On Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install cmake mesa-libGL-devel \
    qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtopengl-devel

On macOS (Homebrew):

brew install cmake qt6

On Windows, install Qt 6 via the online installer and CMake. Make sure the Qt bin/ directory is on your PATH.

Compile

git clone https://github.com/cravesoft/stlviewer.git
cd stlviewer

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --parallel

The executable is placed at build/stlviewer (Linux/macOS) or build\Release\stlviewer.exe (Windows).

Optional: install system-wide

sudo cmake --install build

Packaging

After a successful build, run cpack from the build directory. The package format is auto-selected based on the platform.

.deb (Ubuntu/Debian)

cd build
cpack -G DEB
# produces stlviewer-x.x.x-Linux.deb
sudo dpkg -i stlviewer-x.x.x-Linux.deb

Windows installer (.exe, NSIS)

Build on Windows (or cross-compile), then:

cd build
cpack -G NSIS
# produces stlviewer-x.x.x-win64.exe

You can override the generator on any platform with -G <generator>. Run cpack --help for the full list.

Debug build

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build build --parallel

Usage

# Open one or more files from the command line
stlviewer model.stl

# Or launch with no arguments and use File → Open
stlviewer

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+O	Open file
Ctrl+S	Save
Ctrl+Shift+S	Save As
Ctrl+I	Save image
Ctrl+Q	Quit
R	Toggle rotate mode
P	Toggle pan mode
W	Toggle wireframe
+	Zoom in
-	Zoom out
1	Reset zoom

License

MIT — see LICENSE.