Why STL Renderer?

One thing I've been using A LOT is stltopng from Papa's Best but the project didn't see any update past 2021 and to be honest... it was SUPER NECESARY to make an update haaha, so I've made a new app:

GUI to set the camera angle and zoom Directory rendering (Render all STL files from a specific directory) Single and Multi Drag-n-drop behaviour in the same exe

The idea is that you can drag-n-drop a single stl or multiple stl and it'll create the corresponding PNG renders at ULTRA FRECKING MEGA FAST SPEED with all your settings.... with transparent background too :D

STL Renderer

STL Renderer is a high-performance application for converting STL files to PNG images. It is designed to be extremely fast and allow both individual and batch processing.

Features

• 🚀 Ultra-fast rendering of STL files to PNG
• 🎨 Support for transparent backgrounds
• 🖌️ Customizable color settings for model and background
• 📷 Precise camera control (rotation, distance, zoom)
• 📁 Batch processing of entire folders
• 🖱️ Drag and drop functionality (single or multiple files)
• 💻 Intuitive graphical interface
• 🔧 Configuration saved between sessions

Usage

Drag and Drop

Simply drag one or more STL files onto the STLRenderer.exe executable. This will automatically generate PNG images with the same name (adding _png.png) in the same folder as the original files.

Graphical Interface

To open the graphical interface, double-click on the STLRenderer.exe executable. From here you can:

1. Open STL files from the File > Open menu
2. Adjust model and background colors in the Colors panel
3. Configure camera rotation and distance with the Camera controls
4. Interactively rotate the model with the mouse in the preview window
5. Process entire folders with STL files from File > Process folder
6. Save the current image from File > Save image

Command Line

STL Renderer can also be used from the command line to automate tasks:

stlrenderer [options] [stl_files]

Available options:

• -h, --help - Show help
• -v, --version - Show version
• -s, --silent - Silent mode (no GUI)
• -c, --color R G B - Set model color (values between 0.0 and 1.0)
• -bg, --background R G B - Set background color (values between 0.0 and 1.0)
• -a, --angle A - Set camera angle in degrees
• -o, --output FILE - Set output file for rendered image

System Requirements

• Windows 7 or higher
• Graphics card compatible with OpenGL 3.3+

Building from Source

Requirements

• CMake 3.10 or higher
• C++17 compatible compiler (MSVC, GCC, Clang)
• OpenGL 3.3 or higher

Steps

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/SynrgStudio/stl-renderer.git
   cd stl-renderer

2. Create build directory:

   mkdir build
   cd build

3. Configure with CMake:

   cmake ..

4. Build:

   cmake --build . --config Release

5. The executable will be available in the build/Release/ folder

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please check CONTRIBUTING.md for more details on the contribution process.

Documentation

To better understand the code structure and how it works internally, see DOCUMENTATION.md.

Roadmap

Some features we plan to add in the future:

• Support for other 3D formats (OBJ, FBX, etc.)
• Additional lighting modes
• Customizable shaders
• Export to additional formats (JPG, SVG, etc.)
• Support for Linux and macOS

License

This project is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 License - see the LICENSE file for details. This ensures that any derivative work also remains as free and open-source software.

Contact

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to open an issue in this repository.

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Developed with ❤️ by Damian from SynrgStudio and Claude ❤️ (Yeah, I'm not a good dev, and Claude helped me a lot on this one, get over it XD)