Framework-agnostic CSS voxel renderer with Vue, React, and Svelte wrappers.
npm install @layoutit/voxcssA CSS voxel engine. A 3D grid for the DOM. Renders HTML cuboids by stacking grid layers and applying transforms. Supports colors and textures, interactions and culling, plus shapes, areas and projections. Works with Vue, React, Svelte, or plain JavaScript.
Visit voxcss.com for docs and model examples.
``bash`
npm install @layoutit/voxcss
You can also load VoxCSS directly from unpkg. Here is a minimal example:
`html
`
Vue, React, and Svelte wrappers all expose the same components with identical props: controls the viewpoint (zoom, pan, tilt, rotation, perspective), while receives the voxel array and manages the 3D grid and its decorations.
`tsx
import { VoxCamera, VoxScene } from "@layoutit/voxcss/react";
export default function App() {
const voxels = [{ x: 1, y: 1, z: 0, color: "#f00" }];
return (
);
}
`
- zoom, pan, tilt – translate the camera in/out, vertically, and horizontally.rotX
- , rotY – rotate around the X/Y axis.perspective
- – control CSS perspective depth (or disable it).interactive
- – enable pointer drag controls.invert
- – flip pointer drag direction.animate
- – auto-rotate the camera; accepts true, a speed number, or { axis, speed, pauseOnInteraction }.
- voxels – array of voxel objects; optional (defaults to empty) to render a blank scene.rows
- , cols, depth – override the inferred bounds and explicitly set the 3D grid size.show-walls
- , show-floor – toggle structural planes.projection
- – pick "cubic" or "dimetric" presets to change the layer spacing (50/25px).mergeVoxels
- – merge strategy for performance: false (default), "2d" (merge across x/y within each z layer), or "3d" (merge across x/y/z). If any voxel uses z2, the engine takes the "3d" render path.
Each voxel describes a single cell in the grid:
- x, y, z – required integer coordinates.x2
- , y2, z2 – optional for area footprints.shape
- – cube (default), ramp, wedge, or spike.color
- / texture – apply solid fills or image URLs per voxel.rot
- – rotation in degrees; ramps/wedges/spikes snap to 90° increments.
Example:
`ts`
const voxels = [
{ x: 2, y: 2, z: 0, color: "#f97316" },
{ x: 3, y: 2, z: 0, shape: "ramp", rot: 90, color: "#94a3b8" },
{ x: 3, y: 3, z: 0, texture: "/example.png" }
];
VoxCSS renders everything in the DOM, so performance is mostly determined by how many elements the browser has to manage. To reduce work, the engine does culling based on voxel neighbors and camera rotation, rendering only the outer surface of the model and skipping faces that are not visible.
The mergeVoxels prop can be essential for performance. It controls the stacked grid geometry and allows the engine to group voxels into larger merged elements, significantly reducing DOM node count.
- mergeVoxels="2d" merges adjacent voxels across x / y within each z layer.mergeVoxels="3d"
- merges across x / y / z. This switches the engine from voxel to volumetric rendering.
Use the built-in parser to turn a MagicaVoxel .vox binary into a voxel object and feed it to renderScene:`html
``
Layoutit Voxels
→ A CSS Voxel editor
Layoutit Terra
→ A CSS Terrain Generator
MIT.